Region’s MP clash over ‘stop and search’ as Minister backs tactic
THE HOME Secretary has backed an increase in the use of stop and search powers to help tackle the deadly spate of violence on Britain’s streets.
Sajid Javid also vowed to prioritise police spending as he offered an olive branch to rank-and-file officers following years of sniping over budget cuts and staffing reductions.
His intervention came as Yorkshire MPs clashed in the Commons during a debate on the effect of police stop and search powers on ethnic minority communities. Earlier this month, The York
shire Post revealed that forces across Yorkshire carried out far fewer searches for weapons or drugs in 2017 than the year before, despite national concern at rising levels of knife and gun crime.
Police said “increased scrutiny” of the use of the powers was one reason for its decline.
Giving his first major speech since his appointment, Mr Javid said he is “absolutely determined” to put an end to violence that is “terminating young lives far too soon”.
Referring to stop and search, he told the Police Federation of England and Wales’ annual conference in Birmingham: “Some of you don’t feel comfortable using it – and that’s not how it should be. I have confidence in your professional judgment. So let me be clear – I support the use of stop and search.
“You have to do your job and that means protecting everyone.”
He said evidence shows that black people are more likely to be a homicide victim than any other ethnic group.
“If stop and search can mean saving lives from the communities most affected, then of course that has to be right,” Mr Javid said.
The recent spate of violence has prompted scrutiny of a sharp reduction in stop and search activity , with use of the powers at the lowest level since current data records started 17 years ago.
In the year ending March 2017, there were 303,845 stops and searches conducted in England and Wales – a fall of 21 per cent compared with the previous year.
The tactics have repeatedly attracted controversy amid criticism that they are unfairly focused on black and minority ethnic individuals.
The new Home Secretary’s comments came as MPs discussed the use of stop and search in a Westminster Hall debate led by Labour’s Bradford West MP Naz Shah.
Tory Philip Davies claimed stop and search numbers had reduced dramatically as a result of “politically correct chatter”, adding: “One of the reasons is that the police are fearing stopping and searching people in case they are branded racist.”
The last thing police needed, he argued, was “meddlesome politicians” interfering in their operational work.
The MP for Shipley said: “It’s totally unacceptable to have a situation where officers are leav- ing criminals free to commit crimes simply because they want to avoid having complaints about racism against them.”
Ms Shah, who brought the debate, branded stop and search a “blunt tool for the prevention and detection of crime”, adding it had a “profoundly negative impact on police-community relations”.
She said stop and search was neither the solution to crime problems nor a substitute for intelligence from good relationships with communities.
She said: “For many in our BAME communities, racial profiling and discriminatory policing is real. It is corrosive and it is undermining trust in public institutions.”