Use of Stop and Search

Matt Vickers Excerpts

Wednesday 12th March 2025 Westminster Hall

[Matt Vickers (Stockton West) (Con)]

First and foremost, I extend my condolences to the families of those who lost their lives so tragically to knife crime. Every life lost as a consequence of knife crime is a tragedy. As Members from all parties acknowledged during Monday’s debate on the Crime and Policing Bill, we owe it to the victims and their families to support police forces by ensuring that robust measures are in place to stop those crimes. Incidents of knife crime reiterate our responsibility to our constituents. We must support the police, and provide them with the powers and resources to intervene and take those horrendous weapons off the streets.

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Meriden and Solihull East (Saqib Bhatti) for securing this debate, and for rightly highlighting the need to remove offensive weapons from our streets if we are to save lives. He is right that we cannot have sensitivities around the issue; we must ensure that the police have the ability to stop and search any individuals they believe pose a danger. We must ensure that they have the power and the freedom to achieve that, if we want them to effectively protect the public.

As a number of Members have highlighted, stop and search remains a critical tool for the police in stopping crime. One figure alone underlines its necessity: the number of weapons being found. The data released covering the period until March 2024 showed that 16,066 stop and searches resulted in an offensive weapon or firearm being found. That statistic alone is sufficient to justify the use of stop and search.

In London, stop and search has taken 400 knives a month off the streets in the past. We have consistently seen a significant number of weapon seizures in London—seizures that would not have happened without stop and search. Over the past four years, 17,500 weapons were seized as a result of stop and search, including at least 3,500 in 2024. However, the issue is not confined to London. In 2023-24, in the west midlands there were over 6,000 resultant arrests, while Greater Manchester reported 5,620 resultant arrests.

Rightly, we focus on the impact that stop and search can have in apprehending those who carry dangerous weapons. However, I appreciate that weapons are not always the most common reasons for stop and searches. That should not undermine the need for the police to stop individuals when they have reasonable grounds to suspect that they are carrying illegal drugs or stolen property. Both of those activities are illegal, and the police should be able to intervene to prevent them. Drug offences remain a flagrant breach of the law, undermining our communities.

Members will be aware that PACE code A sets out stringent criteria regarding stop and search. It is appropriate that the extensive guidance in its 39 pages ensure that it is conducted properly. However, historically a number of officers have raised concerns that stop and search numbers are down due to misplaced concerns about community tension. I echo the words of the shadow Home Secretary, my right hon. Friend the Member for Croydon South (Chris Philp), and encourage the Government to ensure that police forces use stop and search more. Where appropriate they should amend legislation, including PACE code A, to make its use easier for officers. We cannot be in a situation where officers have significant concerns about intervening.

Moving forward, we should all be able to agree on the need to improve the effectiveness of stop and search. In the past, police forces have had to make changes to ensure that it is used more effectively. We should always strive to make searches more efficient and increase the number of positive outcomes. Research suggests that when police communicate effectively with the public, the stop and search process can become significantly smoother. Although there may be occasions when attempts to communicate are met with undesirable outcomes, such as hostility, that does not mean that fewer searches should be carried out, but rather that we should conduct them even more effectively.

It was welcome to hear the Minister speak, on Second Reading of the Crime and Policing Bill, about the Home Office’s continued work with industry partners to develop systems capable of detecting concealed knives from a distance. The shadow Home Secretary was correct to allocate funding to such projects in his former role, to ensure that we develop the necessary resources. Phase 1 of that Innovate UK project is expected to be completed by the end of May, resulting in the first prototype systems, so it would be interesting to hear whether the Minister believes that the work produced by the Innovate projects can help the police act more effectively in this area.

It will be essential to integrate technology with the available stop and search powers. In parts of London we have already seen how effective that technology can be. For example, deployments of facial recognition technology in London across January and February this year recorded a maximum false alert rate of just 0.008% in a single deployment. That demonstrates how we can enhance police effectiveness with technology and how crucial it will be to use these tools alongside stop and search to strengthen policing capabilities. Police forces, including the Met, have worked with a range of stakeholders to develop a stop and search charter. Communication from Met officers clearly highlights their strong support for stop and search.

I think that everyone in this debate would welcome attempts to build trust in the system, particularly by fostering an open dialogue with local communities. However, that must be balanced with ensuring that police forces, such as the Met, retain the freedom to operate effectively. Across the country, other forces have implemented similar measures. Will the Minister commit to monitoring the impact of community involvement to ensure that police forces are not unduly influenced by a vocal minority opposed to stop and search and instead listen to the broader community, whose main concern is reducing crime?

Like other hon. Members, I want stop and search to be applied as extensively as necessary. Given the prevalence of knife crime, we must recognise that an increase in the use of stop and search can have serious benefits. However, such an increase is contingent on the availability of police officers. The funding pressures facing police forces in the coming financial year amount to approximately £118 million more than the funding increase they are set to receive. As the National Police Chiefs’ Council has warned, that funding gap will

“inevitably lead to cuts across forces”.

The 43 police forces of England and Wales may have to cut as many as 1,800 officers to make up for the shortfall. It would be valuable to hear whether the Minister believes that funding gap will impact the police’s ability to conduct essential activities such as stop and search.

Everyone who has participated in this debate has recognised the need to make our communities safer. We believe that stop and search plays a vital role in enabling the police to take the action necessary to achieve that. I hope that the Government will commit to ensuring that stop and search remains a key tool in the fight against crime.

--- Later in debate ---

[Matt Vickers]

In terms of the big concerns around redeployment in that space, does the Minister think there is any risk that the redeployment of police officers from response policing could affect the response times when people dial 999?

[Dame Diana Johnson]

Of course we want to see all parts of policing properly staffed and funded. That is why there is more than £1 billion going into the policing settlement for the coming year, over and above what was in the 2024-25 Budget. This Government are committed to making sure we have officers in our neighbourhoods and communities. Equally, response is something that PCCs and chief constables will be very mindful of, but it is clear that policing can walk and talk at the same time. We are saying that neighbourhood policing needs to be built up again after the decimation that we have seen, but that does not mean that other parts of policing will not be business as usual. Policing will be able to deal with that.

There was mention of the Metropolitan police and their stop-and-search charter; I think that was raised by the shadow Minister. I welcome that charter, with its emphasis on respect, training, supervision and oversight. I look forward to seeing how its delivery plan progresses, and what impact it has on the work of building public trust that my hon. Friend the Member for Clapham and Brixton Hill referred to.

On violence reduction, we recognise the valuable work and significant progress made by violence reduction units, which were set up under the previous Government to understand what is going on with serious violence. The police funding settlement for next year includes £49.7 million for the continuation of their work to prevent serious violence, delivered through their VRU programmes. The VRUs bring together local partners to understand and tackle the drivers of serious violence in their area and facilitate the sharing of data across organisational boundaries to build a shared understanding of the root causes of violence locally. In response to those programmes, VRUs are delivering a range of early interventions, doing preventive work to divert young people in particular away from a life of crime. That work includes mentoring, trusted adult programmes, intensive behavioural therapies and sports-based diversionary activities, which are all really positive.

We want the Young Futures programme to build on the work of the VRUs to improve how we identify, reach and support young people at risk of being drawn into violence. That is why we will be asking them to play a leading role in the establishment of the Young Futures prevention partnerships programme, which builds on the existing partnership networks and their considerable experience and expertise to test and develop a model before moving to national roll-out.

It is also worth mentioning the coalition to tackle knife crime. We have an ambitious target of halving knife crime over the next 10 years, but we will not be able to achieve that in isolation; we need to work together with those who share our vision for safer communities. That is why the Prime Minister launched the coalition to tackle knife crime in September, bringing together campaign groups, community leaders, the families of those who have tragically lost their lives to knife crime—James Brindley’s family are involved with the coalition—and young people who have been impacted, united in their mission to save lives. From the west midlands, we have Pooja Kanda, Lynne Baird and, as I said, Mark Brindley as members of the coalition. Having the lived experience of young people is critical to the coalition, and we are keen to ensure that they have a platform to share their views, ideas and solutions to make Britain a safer place for the next generation.

I also want to mention serious violence reduction orders, because they are pertinent to the west midlands. Four police forces, including West Midlands police, are currently piloting serious violence reduction orders, as part of a two-year pilot that began in April 2023 and is due to finish in April this year. These are court orders that can be placed on adults upon conviction of a knife or offensive weapons offence, and they provide police with the power to automatically stop and search individuals convicted of knife offences, with the aim of deterring habitual knife-carrying behaviour. The pilot is being robustly and independently evaluated in terms of its effectiveness in tackling knife crime, as well as any disproportionality in its use, and I look forward to seeing the results.

Finally, I want to talk about gangs, which a number of Members referred to. It is crucial that we tackle the gang culture that lures children and young people into crime and runs county lines through violence and exploitation. As we committed to do in our manifesto, we are introducing a new offence of criminal exploitation of children in the Crime and Policing Bill. That new criminal offence is necessary to increase convictions of exploiters, deter gangs from enlisting children and improve identification of victims.

Alongside the new offence, we are creating a new regime for child criminal exploitation prevention orders, to prevent exploitative conduct committed by adults against children from occurring or reoccurring. We all know that county lines are the most violent model of drug supply and the most harmful form of child criminal exploitation. Through the county lines programme, we will continue to target exploitative drug-dealing gangs and break the model of organised crime groups behind the trade.

We know that through stop and search, police may come into contact with children who they suspect are victims of criminal exploitation, and it is vital that police take an appropriate safeguarding approach to potential victims and ensure they receive appropriate support. We are providing specialist support for children and young people to escape county lines and child criminal exploitation, and we will be delivering on our manifesto commitment to roll out further support through the Young Futures programme.

I repeat my thanks to the hon. Member for Meriden and Solihull East for securing the debate, and to all Members who have participated. This is a sensitive issue, and I am grateful for the constructive and insightful nature of the discussion today. The Government’s position is clear: stop and search is an important tool, but it must be used fairly and effectively. Getting that balance right is key, and I am keen to carry on working with the police to achieve the best outcomes we can.