My Lords, I thank all noble Lords for another fruitful debate. As I said at the beginning, this Bill has undoubtedly been given the scrutiny the British public want and expect.
Before I go on to more substantive remarks, I should say that I fully support the Casey report. The Government and the Met Police have taken this report very seriously. Guidance on the use of stop and search is statutory and is set out in PACE. It is the law. That is the place for it, as the noble Lord, Lord Hogan-Howe, pointed out, if nothing else to ensure consistency. There are safeguards and considerable scrutiny of stop and search and I will come back to that.
The noble Lord, Lord Coaker, and others will no doubt accuse me of semantics but as my noble friend Lord Sandhurst reminded us, these powers relate to serious disruption—ambulances should not be stopped from getting to hospital, as the leader of the Opposition has pointed out in the past.
On the comments from the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, about the effectiveness of stop and search, I was reminded of a pack that I still have in my folder. I was giving some statistics yesterday, and every knife seized through stop and search, I think, is a potential life saved. In 2021-22, stop and search removed around 14,900 weapons and firearms from our streets and resulted in almost 67,000 arrests. I appreciate that we are on a slightly different subject, but none the less this is an important and powerful illustration that, used appropriately, stop and search can work.
Recent protests have been clear in their aim of causing as much disruption as possible through the use of guerrilla tactics. These measures give the police the proactive powers necessary to respond to those dangerous and disruptive tactics quickly. We will work closely with our partners in the police to ensure that they have the support and resources in place to use these powers.
I have heard what the House has said about the potential disproportionality involved in this and we acknowledge that nobody should be stopped and searched because of their race. Extensive safeguards such as the statutory codes of practice to which I have referred and the use of body-worn video exist to ensure that this does not happen. The Home Office publishes extensive data on police use of stop and search in the interest of transparency and we will expand the publication to the use of the new powers provided for in this Bill, as I have already outlined.
I referred to GOWISELY earlier, which is a mnemonic. This follows, and frankly supports, many of the recommendations from the noble Baroness, Lady Casey. I will go through them. The G stands for grounds for the search. These are the minimum bits of information which should be given to the person detained for the purpose of the search. O stands for the object of the search. W is for the warrant card to be shown to the person searched. I is for the identity of the officer—that is usually the officer’s name unless the officer thinks that giving their name would put them in danger, in which case an identification number can be given. S is the station to which the officer is attached. E is the entitlement to a copy of the search form. L is the legal search power being exercised. Y means that you, the officer, must tell the person stopped that they are being detained for the purpose of the search.
The noble Lord, Lord Morgan, referred to the situation in Paris. As I understand it, much of that is a consequence of the activities of the gendarmerie, which is not a police force with any equivalent in this country.
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Much has been said—by me—about the long-established safeguards that already exist for stop and search powers. I will go back to my initial speech: we have supported the National Police Chiefs’ Council in its publication of national guidance on the use of
body-worn cameras. This includes encouraging forces to share footage with external scrutiny groups to support transparency and reflective practice and learning. I am not sure how that justifies disproportionality, in answer to the point from the noble Lord, Lord Paddick.
To go back to the PACE codes that we intend to amend, as I said earlier and will say again for the avoidance of doubt, this is statutory—it is law. We recognise the merits that establishing this communication requirement in statute can bring and commit now to amending PACE code 8 to require that, where it is operationally practical to do so, forces must communicate the extent of the area authorised for the suspicionless stop and search, the duration of an order and the reasons for the order.
As I have also said, the Home Office already publishes an annual statistics bulletin that analyses the data from forces across England and Wales. We will also amend PACE code 8 to place data collection within the legislative framework. This will include a breakdown of both suspicion-led and suspicionless searches, cross-referenced with protected characteristics such as age, sex and ethnicity.
I said earlier that I hoped that would persuade the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, to withdraw his Motion. I do believe that most of the things that he has eloquently explained that he wishes to see put in are already in place, albeit by slightly different means, but it remains the Government’s view that their suspicionless powers as introduced are necessary and much-needed proactive powers for talking highly disruptive protest offences and that the changes we have debated cannot be supported. So the Government’s position remains unchanged. We believe it is time for the Bill to become law, and I beg to move.