Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what discussions she has had with the Police and Crime Commissioner for Essex on incidents involving knives in Clacton and the potential effect of stop and search guidelines.

There have been no specific discussions with the Police and Crime Commissioner
for Essex on incidents involving knives in Clacton.

The Best Use of Stop and Search Scheme was announced by the Home Secretary on
30 April 2014, and the intention is to launch the Scheme in the summer. The
Scheme aims to achieve greater transparency and community involvement in the
use of stop and search by the police and support a more intelligence-led
approach leading to better outcomes, particularly improving the stop and search
to arrest ratio.

Only 9% of the 1.2 million stop and searches that took place in 2011/12 led to
an arrest. The adoption of an intelligence-led approach to stop and search by
the Metropolitan Police in January 2012 coincided with a fall of a third in the
number of recorded stop and searches taking place between 2011/12 and 2012/13,
while the proportion of resultant arrests increased from 8% to 12%. Meanwhile
in the same period, offences recorded by the Metropolitan Police involving
knives or sharp instruments fell by 20%.