Strip Searching of Children

Sarah Jones Excerpts

Tuesday 28th March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the shadow Minister.

[Sarah Jones (Croydon Central) (Lab)]

We all accept that in certain extreme circumstances it will be necessary to search children, and this discussion does not question that. The findings of the Children’s Commissioner, Dame Rachel de Souza, on the strip search of children are shocking, and I pay tribute to her. One child who was strip searched aged 13 is quoted as saying:

“They told me to get naked. They told me to bend over… I think there were about three officers present. So, I’ve got three fully grown blokes staring at my bollocks”.

I repeat that that child was 13.

Let us be clear about what the law allows a strip search to entail. The report states that

“searching officers may make physical contact with…orifices. Searching officers can physically manipulate intimate body parts, including the penis or buttocks”.

That is very intrusive. However, Dame Rachel found that 53% of searches of children did not include an appropriate adult, in 45% of cases the venue was not even recorded, 2% of searches took place in a public or commercial setting, and 1% took place in public view. The report also identified very high levels of disproportionality, with black children up to six times more likely to be strip searched. This is not just a problem with the Met; other forces conducted proportionally more strip searches of children.

Child Q was strip searched in December 2020, and a report on the search was published in March 2022. That was a year ago. I stood in the House and told the then Minister that the guidance in the authorised professional practice of the College of Policing on strip searching children and Police and Criminal Evidence Act codes A and C were not clear enough, but nothing has been done. Dame Rachel has said exactly the same in her report one year on. Why did the Government not act a year ago? Why have we allowed hundreds more children to be strip searched without proper protection? Yet again, the Conservatives’ hands-off approach is under-mining confidence in policing and the safeguarding of our young people.

I appreciate that this report is new and that the Minister is new and she will take some time to consider the recommendations, but the fundamental review of PACE called for by the Children’s Commissioner is in the Minister’s gift and we have been calling for it for a year. Will the Minister commit to it today? If not, will she at least give us a timescale on when she will come back with how she plans to act?

I hope the Minister will condemn the response of the Government Minister in the other place yesterday in a debate on the same subject, who simply said:

“I assume that they have very good reasons to do this; otherwise, they would not conduct these searches.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 27 March 2023; Vol. 829, c. 17.]

That complacency and that optimism bias fly in the face of Dame Rachel’s findings. Does the Minister accept that there is any problem at all? We need to see change, and the Minister can make it now.

[Miss Dines]

The Government and I very much welcome this report. There is, of course, opportunity for change and improvement, and we must do better for our children, but I do not accept the general proposition that the Government are doing nothing, as the hon. Lady suggests. That is simply not the case.

There has been ground-leading engagement recently. Since the case of Child Q came to light, the Home Office has engaged widely with stakeholders including the National Police Chiefs’ Council, custody leads and stop and search leads. The College of Policing is making improvements. His Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary and fire and rescue services, the Police Federation, the Association of Police and Crime Commissioners and wider civil society organisations have been engaged by the police. There is movement in this space. Members on this side of the House take it very seriously. We want to safeguard our children from the criminal gangs.

The hon. Lady mentioned PACE. We are committed to looking at that. One of the core recommendations that bites against the Home Office is for the proper reconsideration of PACE to see if it is appropriate, and that will be done. I give a commitment to consider that recommendation carefully.

In relation to data, we have moved significantly in the last three years in that regard. We have increased our custody data collection to allow people who are looking at this to have more cognisance of the research that can be done to improve things, for example by knowing more information about the age, ethnicity or gender of somebody who is to be searched. This information is crucial. We cannot just jump to conclusions; this needs to be evidence-based. I am pleased that the Government are working on data.

This Government believe in scrutiny. As we set out in the “Inclusive Britain” report, the Government and policing partners will create a new national framework for how our police powers, such as stop and search, are scrutinised at local level. There are also protective measures to protect children and sometimes, it has to be said, to protect police officers. There is an increase in the use of body-worn videos to explore the sharing of body-worn video footage with local scrutiny panels—[Interruption.] Opposition Members seem to find this hilarious, but I think it is really important that local scrutiny bodies are able to see what is happening on the ground. The Home Office is supporting the Ministry of Justice, which is working really hard with the National Police Chiefs’ Council to develop these scrutiny panels so that the use of stop and search can be examined more, with the aim of addressing the difference in the experience of ethnic minority children and adults in police custody. This is really important work.