Stop and Search: West Midlands

Debate between Mike Wood and Jack Dromey

Wednesday 17th November 2021 Westminster Hall

[Jack Dromey (Birmingham, Erdington) (Lab)]

On 31 May this year, a fine young man, Dea-John, was hunted down and knifed to death on the streets of Kingstanding. The following day, I met his distraught mother, and the weekend following, I was with thousands of others both to celebrate his life and to bring the community together in opposition to the rising threat of knife crime.

Only today, the police are carrying out a major operation—a knife search, as they call it—in the Finchley Park area. I regularly talk and work with our local police service on how they use stop and search on the one hand, and on initiatives such as knife arches in a number of local secondary schools, on the other. There is no question but that stop and search remains essential to effective policing, acting as a valuable tool in combating pervasive, violent crime and keeping our communities safe as a consequence. The key is that the use of stop and search has to be appropriate. The need for the police to carry communities with them remains paramount. Historically, that has not always been the case, which has damaged police-community relations. Stop and search remains, however, an important tool in our armoury, with the caveat that its successful application requires ongoing dialogue with communities. I am pleased that the West Midlands police and crime commissioner has made clear commitments to that end.

Although I welcome the fact that the hon. Member for West Bromwich East (Nicola Richards) has secured the debate, I disagree with her interpretation of what the police and crime commissioner said. There has also been no mention thus far of the single biggest problem facing the police service, to which I will return. The police and crime commissioner has given no direction to the chief constable to reduce or scale back stop and search. It has been suggested in some quarters that he has, but that is simply not true.

[Mike Wood (Dudley South) (Con)]

How does the hon. Gentleman interpret the parts of the police and crime commissioner’s plan where he quotes reports that say that stop and search does little or nothing to tackle crime, and where he says that the measure of whether “reasonable grounds” have been met should be whether at least 50% of stop and searches result in further action?

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[Jack Dromey]

There are two things. First, on stop and search, it would happen in exactly the way I have said—I have quoted the police and crime commissioner’s own words and I have heard him say it personally. It is about the vigorous but appropriate use of stop and search—getting it right; avoiding counterproductive outcomes. Secondly, he cannot put right all the wrongs of the past era since 1997, but he is committed to recruiting an additional 450 police officers, which I welcome.

[Mike Wood]

Why does the hon. Member think that Labour police and crime commissioners in the west midlands have seen rapid increases in the recorded crime rate over the past 12 months, where Labour police and crime commissioners and Mayors in other urban areas, such as Merseyside and Greater Manchester, have seen falls during the pandemic? Why is the west midlands different?

[Jack Dromey]

The size of the cuts that have been made to the police service is one answer to that. Can I throw a question back? If it is right, as is undoubtedly the case, that the police service has been starved of the necessary resources—and what the Government are proposing will still leave us 1,000 short in the west midlands—why do Government Members not join us to speak with one voice and say to the Government, “Back our police service; invest in our police service. We want to see a return to 2010, and an end to an era where the public have been put at risk as a consequence of those cuts.”? I throw that question back.

It is right for the hon. Member for West Bromwich East to bring this debate. Are we simply going to focus on a crucial issue, and then have no regard to the cost and consequences to the police service of being starved of the necessary resources, and all that has flowed from that? That cannot be the case. Hon. Members must make up their minds, because we will probably have the police grant settlement before Christmas. We need to stand together to influence the Government. Would any hon. Member like to respond to that? Why not unite with Labour colleagues to put the safety and security of the people of the west midlands first?

[Mike Wood]

I certainly welcome the hon. Gentleman’s appeal to put partisan political point scoring to one side. He may remember that back in the distant days of January 2016, we had a similar debate in this very Chamber—I was sitting here, and he was sitting nearby as shadow Policing Minister—at a time when the previous Labour police and crime commissioner for the west midlands had asked us all to come together on a cross-party basis to support a £5 increase in the police precept for the west midlands. I did so, and my hon. Friend the Member for Solihull (Julian Knight) also did so. Can the hon. Gentleman remember how he briefed the local media after Conservative Members had supported the Labour police and crime commissioner’s increase in the precept?

[Jack Dromey]

Correct me if I am wrong, but was there universal support from Tory colleagues at that point in time? No, there was not. Were there some truly honourable hon. Members who took a stand in support of proper funding of the police? Yes, there were, and I welcome that.

I say this one final time: all Government Members are going to have to make their mind up. The case for additional resources and a reversal of the cuts of the past 10 or 15 years is overwhelming, and the consequences being felt by our communities are likewise overwhelming. Therefore, we need to stand together and say to the Government that we badly need additional investment of resources in our police service, not least because the first duty of any Government is the safety and security of their citizens. The Government often talk tough on crime, but the reality is sadly the opposite. Our priority must be to return the police service in the west midlands to 2010 levels.

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[Mike Wood (Dudley South) (Con)]

Thank you, Ms Rees. I shall be very brief.

My father was a constable with West Midlands police for 29 years and was stationed for much of that time in the constituency of the hon. Member for Birmingham, Perry Barr (Mr Mahmood), working in Aston, Handsworth and some challenging parts of the city at a particularly challenging time in the late ’70s and early ’80s. An awful lot has changed about policing since he retired, but it is still the case that stop and search remains a vital tool for combating the scourge of serious violence and keeping people safe. We do not need to hear politicians saying that. The public know that that is common sense. The police know it to be true. Deputy Chief Constable Adrian Hanstock, the National Police Chiefs’ Council lead for stop and search, said:

“The authority to stop and search people in appropriate circumstances is a necessary power that allows police officers to tackle violence in our communities and prevent people from becoming victims of crime. Every day officers across the country seize horrifying weapons and are preventing further injuries and deaths by using their search powers.”

My hon. Friend the Member for West Bromwich East (Nicola Richards) referred to parts of the police and crime commissioner’s crime plan for 2021 to 2025. The commissioner is right in one regard: stop and search is clearly an intrusive process. However, on the scale of interventions open to the police, it is very much at the lesser end of intrusion. Given its impact on both individuals who are stopped and searched and on perceptions of policing and fairness in the wider community, we must ensure that the powers are used appropriately, as the deputy chief constable said.

Certain individuals or groups of individuals should not be repeatedly targeted and stopped such that it almost becomes harassment. However, I fear that the language used by the police and crime commissioner in his plan sends out a signal to the many hard-working constables and officers in our communities across the west midlands, and to our neighbourhood policing teams in particular, that they should be extremely nervous of stop and search and use it only if they have almost seen a person carry a knife around a town centre—they need such a high level of certainty.

The commissioner writes in the plan:

“If searches are based on a reasonable suspicion of finding something or some other action following, then at least half would need to generate a positive outcome. This is not the case.”

That 50% positive searches test is not generally shared by practising barristers or criminal solicitors, and it is certainly not shared by the majority of police officers, yet by putting that in his formal plan for the police force area, he introduces such a note of caution that, in circumstances where an officer has good grounds to believe that an individual may be carrying an offensive weapon in one of our streets, town centres, communities or pubs, they are more likely to avoid stopping and searching than to carry out a stop and search. Even if there were positive results in only 20% of cases, that could be a significant amount of harm avoided and, indeed, lives not lost.

Proportionality is central to how appropriate the measures are. Inevitably, as the deputy commissioner of the Metropolitan police force, Sir Stephen House, said, if such powers are being used properly and in the areas with high crime rates, certain groups are far more likely to be stopped and searched than if people were being stopped and searched in St James’s park—the outer edges of the police force area—and the same applies in the west midlands. We know that parts of the region have far higher levels of crime and that, if we took a random sample in those areas, we would find that on a demographic, ethnicity or socioeconomic level, certain groups would be likely to be stopped more often than if a similar exercise were done on the streets of Pedmore in Dudley, or perhaps in parts of Meriden. We must ensure that these powers are not being used discriminatorily. We have to ensure that our police are comfortable and confident in exercising these powers when they are needed—when they feel that they have good and solid reasons to think that an individual may be carrying a weapon. We have also to ensure that police will have people’s backing, and that they will have the backing of decision makers and politicians. Sadly, some sections of the police and crime commissioner’s plan damage that confidence. They threaten to make our region less safe. I hope that he will reconsider and edit his plan.

[Jack Dromey]

On that last point about making the region less safe, the simple fact is that, as the police service’s resources have substantially diminished, crime has risen. Will the hon. Gentleman therefore be joining fellow Tory colleagues and Labour colleagues to make strong representations to Government to reverse the cuts that have been made to our police service since 2010?