UK Parliament / Open data

Public Order Bill

I return to trust, which is the basis of policing by consent. We need trust in the police, not just so that when people pick up the phone they get assistance, but from an intelligence perspective as well. One concern that I have had consistently throughout the debate on the Bill is that, in eroding that trust, we will fail to get the intelligence that we need in order to prevent some of the offences that the Government are attempting to stop via the Bill.

The Minister has pointed out the additions to the PACE code, but I wonder whether, if those in the other place had not persisted in their course in relation to suspicionless stop and search, we would have got that climbdown from the Government. I agree with the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis) that we need this provision on the face of the Bill. The reality is that when we look separately at section 60 searches—again, this is from the Casey report—it does not appear that a sudden surge in use had any effect on the underlying trend.

I have deep concerns that if the Government are successful in disagreeing with the Lords amendments today, which I suspect they might be, we will miss the opportunity of the Casey report and, several years from now, we will be standing in this place debating the fact that—we told the House so—stop and search does not work.

Type
Proceeding contribution
Reference
731 c551 
Session
2022-23
Chamber / Committee
House of Commons chamber
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