Stop and Search Powers

Lord Marlesford Excerpts

Monday 12th November 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

My Lords, I apologise; I did not deliberately leave it out. The noble Lord is right to make that point. We are acutely aware of it, as is the Home Secretary. Recent stories in the papers have not made for good reading. There are several reasons why knife crime is on the increase, not least the link to drugs, I am afraid. Through the Offensive Weapons Bill and the strategy that we have recently produced, we are absolutely determined to tackle it.

[Lord Marlesford (Con)]

My Lords, knife crime normally involves carrying a knife, knives are normally made of metal, and metal is very easy to detect. Why do the police not ensure—not in a discriminatory way, but for everybody in particular areas—that people are subjected to the same system as is used in airports? Mobile arches could be set up outside Underground stations where everybody passes through—in St James’s Street as well as in Peckham. Search everyone; you would at least make it much more difficult to carry a knife around London. Why not have a go?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

My Lords, the notion of searching everybody who goes through an Underground station would, I am afraid, be unfeasible. In addition to knives, there are other metal things that people might carry in their pockets. I can foresee that system as being entirely unworkable. I go back to the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Rosser: intelligence-led stop and search is the most effective way to deal with some of the problems we are seeing.