Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what recent guidance she has issued to police forces on the use of stop and search.

Stop and search helps to seize deadly weapons from our streets and is a vital tool in the fight against violent crime. We fully support the police in their use of this power to tackle serious violence and protect our communities from harm. There were over 9,300 offensive weapons arrests in 2018-19, a 20% increase on the previous year.

Code A of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 provides detailed guidance for police officers on the fair and effective use of stop and search, and the College of Policing has developed an Authorised Professional Practice on stop and search based on Code A and recommendations from reviews of stop and search.