Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether data is available on the number of strip-searches carried out on children by police forces in England and Wales.

The information requested is not held.

The Home Office collects and publishes data on stop and search on an annual basis as part of the ‘Police Powers and Procedures’ statistical publication. The most recent data are available here:

https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/police-powers-and-procedures-other-pace-powers-england-and-wales-year-ending-31-march-2021

The Home Office have recently introduced a data collection on strip searches to the Annual Data Requirement. Police forces will be providing this data for 2021/22 on a voluntary basis, and it is due for publication towards the end 2022. The data collection will include details on the age, sex and ethnicity of persons strip searched by the police in England and Wales.