Michael Ellis
Main Page: Michael Ellis (Conservative - Northampton North)Department Debates - View all Michael Ellis's debates with the Home Office
(14 years, 4 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Mrs May
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his comments. The shadow Police Minister, the right hon. Member for Delyn (Mr Hanson), mutters from a sedentary position, “It was random,” but that is the whole point of the European Court judgment. There needs to be a degree of suspicion if the police are to stop and search somebody. On the rest of my hon. Friend’s question, it is important for us to defend our civil liberties. I believe that that is the task of everybody in the House, and I am only sorry that the previous Government chose to infringe those civil liberties in some of their legislative decisions.
Michael Ellis (Northampton North) (Con)
Does my right hon. Friend agree that, to be safe, we must keep the whole country on side and ensure that no group feels persecuted or victimised, and that today’s announcement is a welcome step in the right direction?
Mrs May
I am grateful to my hon. Friend, who makes an extremely valid point. It is in a sense an extension of the one made by my hon. Friend the Member for Harlow (Robert Halfon)—notably, one difficulty was that parts of the community felt that the way in which the stop-and-search powers were used was disproportionate. The concerns were such that they began to bring into disrepute the police’s ability to keep us safe at the same time as we, as a Parliament, maintained our civil liberties.