Abandon ‘politically correct shibboleth’, May told

up from 2,803 the previous year. There were 25 per cent fewer stop-and-searches in West Yorkshire and 39 per cent fewer in South Yorkshire, monitoring group Stop Watch said.

Halifax MP Ms Lynch has witnessed officers around the country try hard to “negotiate the pressures” around skin colour.

She told “We know it’s predominantly more young black men who are the victims of knife crime. And ultimately it’s the parents of those young men who are asking us when they have been victims of knife crime, why wasn’t more done around stop-and-search to ... take those knives off the street.”

Mr Davies said: “Manifestly the 2014 reforms have been a catastrophic mistake and in any other walk of life, in any business, when you make a mistake you change it. I’m not prepared to see more and more people unnecessarily lose their life due to knife crime just on the back of some politically correct shibboleth.”

Sheffield Brightside and Hillsborough MP Gill Furniss said knife crime usually involves white men in her area, but that Somali mothers have called for a step up in stop-and-search.

“They feel it might stop their young men from carrying knives but if it’s done appropriately and sensitively,” she said. The Home Office said violent crime was “totally unacceptable” and stressed it is considering laws to restrict the use of weapons as well as developing a serious violence strategy to work with young people, including £1m to help communities tackle knife crime.