Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps her Department is taking to expand the use of stop-and-search powers in areas with persistently high levels of knife crime.

Stop and search is an important power that helps the police to get knives off our streets and save lives.

Police have powers to search any individual or vehicle where there are reasonable grounds to suspect they will find offensive weapons. Where serious violence has occurred or is anticipated, powers are available to authorise weapons searches with or without reasonable suspicion in a particular area for a limited time.

Chief constables and their officers are best placed to make operational decisions about how these powers are deployed in response to crime trends, intelligence and local needs.

In addition to supporting the use of stop and search in our efforts to reduce knife crime, we have banned zombie-style knives and ninja swords, strengthened legislation, and removed over 60,000 knives through surrender schemes and targeted operations. We are investing in prevention through the Young Futures Programme and rebuilding neighbourhood policing, with 13,000 additional police officers, Police Community Support Officers and Special Constables in neighbourhood policing roles across England and Wales by the end of this Parliament. This includes delivering 3,000 additional officers into neighbourhood policing roles by March 2026.

In the year ending March 2025, 15,955 (3.0%) stop and searches resulted in an offensive weapon or firearm being found.

Searches carried out for firearms and offensive weapons had the highest find rate at 15.7% (670) and 12.3% (9,483) respectively.

The number of arrests following searches under all legislation increased by 2,705 (up 3.6% to 78,746) in the year ending March 2025.

Data on stop and search for the year ending March 2025 was published on 6 November 2025: Police powers and procedures: Stop and search, arrests and mental health detentions, England and Wales, year ending 31 March 2025