Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, for what reason her Department has not yet published statistics on the use of stop and search powers in 2020-21.

On Monday 25 October the Home Office took the decision to delay the publication of the annual ‘Police powers and procedures: Stop and search and arrests, England and Wales year ending 31 March 2021’ statistical bulletin. This decision was made to allow the Home Office extra time to quality assure new, more granular data on individual stop and search records.

This decision was made in line with the Code of Practice for Statistics and announced at the earliest possible point on GOV.UK. The announcement can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/announcements/police-powers-and-procedures-stop-and-search-and-arrests-england-and-wales-year-ending-31-march-2021

As set out in the announcement, the statistical bulletin will now be published on 18^th November 2021 at 9:30am and will be available here: Police powers and procedures England and Wales statistics - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk).