Knife Crime: Stop and Search

Lord McConnell of Glenscorrodale Excerpts

Tuesday 1st April 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Sanderson of Welton (Con)]

My Lords—

[Lord McConnell of Glenscorrodale (Lab)]

My Lords—

[Captain of the Honourable Corps of Gentlemen-at-Arms and Chief Whip (Lord Kennedy of Southwark) (Lab Co-op)]

My Lords, we will hear the noble Baroness, Lady Sanderson, next, and then my noble friend Lord McConnell.

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

I am grateful to the noble Baroness for making that very interesting point. There were 5,145 stop and searches under suspicionless Section 60 powers last year, which fell between the jurisdiction of both Governments. That was a 20% increase on the previous year but represents just 3% of the 150,000 stop and searches that have been conducted. It is a very valid point and one that I will take away and look at in detail.

[Lord McConnell of Glenscorrodale (Lab)]

My Lords, is my noble friend aware that Glasgow’s Violence Reduction Unit, established by our Justice Minister in Scotland, Cathy Jamieson, in 2005, had a combination of tougher action by the police and the courts, alongside the action referred to earlier on education and health and other areas? It has had remarkable success, so can lessons from that be learned elsewhere in the United Kingdom? Is my noble friend willing to come to Glasgow to meet those who still work in that unit to learn from some of those lessons?