Police: Stop and Search

Baroness Butler-Sloss Excerpts

Tuesday 6th May 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

The noble Lord is absolutely right; it is important there is training in the use of stop and search by police officers and that it is updated. It is important that the outcomes of stop and searches are monitored for both the impacts, which the noble Lord mentioned earlier, and to see whether racial disparities are taking place. Those should be fed back to both the College of Policing and the National Police Chiefs’ Council. This is why the National Police Chiefs’ Council is issuing and regularly updating information on the race action plan, both monitoring it and examining its impact.

[Baroness Butler-Sloss (CB)]

My Lords—

[Lord Harris of Haringey (Lab)]

My Lords—

[Captain of the Honourable Corps of Gentlemen-at-Arms and Chief Whip (Lord Kennedy of Southwark) (Lab Co-op)]

There is plenty of time for both questions if noble Lords are quick.

[Baroness Butler-Sloss (CB)]

My Lords, the Minister was talking about increased numbers of police. Are the Government supportive of neighbourhood policing?

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

We are so supportive of neighbourhood policing that we have put an extra £1 billion into that fund this year. We are employing around an extra 3,000 neighbourhood police this year and will employ 13,000 more over the course of this Parliament.