Nick Herbert (Shadow Minister (Police Reform), Home Affairs; Arundel & South Downs, Conservative)

I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.

The purpose of new clause 12 is to precipitate debate on a matter that is controversial and sensitive but that should none the less be discussed—the requirement placed on the police since the Macpherson report to record every stop that they make. That requirement does not apply every time that the police engage in a general conversation with the member of the public, but it does apply when a police officer requests someone to stop to account for themselves. A large number of interactions with the public are therefore covered by the provision. Although I understand that national figures for the number of stops made and recorded under the new provisions are not yet available, as the provisions have been in place for only 17 months, we know that police in the Metropolitan police area make 30,000 stops-and-searches or stops-and-accounts every month.

I emphasise that my new clause, which aims to end the requirement to record every stop, does not apply to stops-and-searches. It is generally agreed that a search is intrusive and that it is important that police officers record them. However, it would apply to stops alone.

My concerns fall into two categories. The first is that the relevant form is very long. The Minister will be familiar with it, but I do not know whether other Committee members are. I am sure that the hon. Member for Hornsey and Wood Green is. It contains 40 questions and takes about seven minutes to fill in, according to the Police Federation. The reason for the stop, the outcome and the self-defined ethnicity of the person stopped must be included in it. According to the Home Office, the average police officer stops someone and completes one of the forms every 2.2 hours that they spend outside a police station. That creates a time issue. If a police officer wishes to make a number of stops, that means that he could be engaged in filling in forms for a long time. The practical effect is that he will probably be deterred from making the stops in the first place.

My second concern relates to the extent to which the bureaucracy that recording will generate prevents the police from encountering people and requiring them to stop. How robust is the system? To what extent are police officers being deterred from making stops? Stopping people is precisely what we wish them to do in neighbourhood policing.

James Brokenshire (Hornchurch, Conservative)

Has my hon. Friend, as I have, received complaints from police officers that the part of the form that is given to the person stopped sets out in great detail their rights, including a statement to the effect that they do not have to give the police any information at all? Some police officers have told me that the sheet is often thrust in their faces on subsequent occasions by people saying, “We don’t have to tell you anything; you told us that on your notice.”

Nick Herbert (Shadow Minister (Police Reform), Home Affairs; Arundel & South Downs, Conservative)

That is one concern. Another is that people decide that they just do not wish to complete that part of the form, and walk away. Those are practical concerns about the form and its potential for deterring police officers from engaging with the community.

A third practical concern is the cost of collating the forms and the bureaucracy that is created. The new clause was prompted by the Metropolitan Police Authority reporting only a few days ago that its anti-bureaucracy taskforce had estimated that the cost of completing the forms was £720,000 annually, with front-line officers’ time being diverted from other duties. The authority said that, as a result of concerns expressed by the Metropolitan police service and other forces, Ministers were considering ways of reducing the burden. I understand that digital technology and electronic forms to record searches may be available. The Home Office confirmed that a report—not a routine report—was being prepared. Part of my purpose in tabling the new clause was to seek further clarification about that study—how far it goes and the extent to which it will take on board some of the concerns that I have raised.

Lynne Featherstone (Shadow Minister, Home Affairs; Hornsey & Wood Green, Liberal Democrat)

Does the hon. Gentleman accept that the forms were needed because of discrimination and disproportionality in the way that stops were being carried out?

Nick Herbert (Shadow Minister (Police Reform), Home Affairs; Arundel & South Downs, Conservative)

I was coming to precisely to that point. It lies at the heart of the debate, and it is an intensely sensitive matter. As I said, the stop form was introduced as a result of the recommendations of the Macpherson report, which accepted that stop-and-search was a valuable activity, but recommended that a record of searches should be kept in order to build confidence among ethnic communities.

I wholeheartedly accept the need to build confidence, as Macpherson recommended, and that it is essential that any suggestion of racism should be dealt with firmly throughout the police service. I am sure that hon. Members on both sides of the Committee agree on that. The question is whether the measure has itself become disproportionate, and that it imposes a burden, which has other costs, on the police. Our judgment is that it does.

When action is taken in response to situations that have caused a great deal of public concern or outrage, the pendulum can swing too far. In 2002, the former chairman of the Metropolitan Police Authority, Lord Harris, said that since Macpherson

“the balance has probably slipped too far the other way, which has resulted in police being reluctant to use stop and search powers for fear of accusations of racism or harassment, even where they suspect wrongdoing.”

That may be the case irrespective of the existence of the form, but it reflects a general sensitivity among the police.

Lynne Featherstone (Shadow Minister, Home Affairs; Hornsey & Wood Green, Liberal Democrat)

Does the hon. Gentleman not accept that the form offers the police some protection against accusations of disproportionality or racism? It enables them to use what everyone agrees is a vital tool for forces to function and detect criminality.

Nick Herbert (Shadow Minister (Police Reform), Home Affairs; Arundel & South Downs, Conservative)

I accept that some police officers believe that it provides some protection. On the other hand, that will depend on the collation of the data, which has not yet happened; it may do the opposite, and fuel further debate about whether there is disproportionality.

The wider concern is whether the existence of a stop form that has to be used in all situations and at all stops where people are asked to account for themselves holds up effective policing and deters the police from making stops. Police officers of all ranks have expressed that concern to me. That is not always reflected in what the police service says officially, because it is acutely sensitive about the issue and does not want to send out the wrong message to ethnic communities. I understand that sensitivity. Nevertheless, it is important that Parliament should be willing to debate the issues carefully and sensitively, and to consider the effects of such measures.

On the basis of the report that I read about the cost and bureaucracy of the measure, I want to examine whether it is possible to reduce the bureaucracy. I accept that it is essential to retain the search form, but believe that there is case for removing the requirement for a stop form, at least until it can be shown that the bureaucracy can be substantially reduced. I should like these important and controversial measures to be   subject to an open review at a defined period after their introduction. They have been in place for 17 months and it is important for the sake of the whole service that that should happen and that we should have a careful debate about their effectiveness.

Hazel Blears (Minister of State (Policing, Security and Community Safety), Home Office; Salford, Labour)

The new clause would remove the necessity for the police to record a stop. There is a process for seeking to amend PACE codes, so it is inappropriate to include such an amendment in the Bill. Proposed changes are subject to a lengthy public consultation and the codes have recently been revised to cover this area.

Nick Herbert (Shadow Minister (Police Reform), Home Affairs; Arundel & South Downs, Conservative)

I appreciate that and I am grateful to the Minister for making the point. I tabled the amendment as a means to prompt discussion the issue, because it gives rise to great concern. I appreciate that there is a method for revising the code and that my new clause might not be the appropriate way of doing it.

Hazel Blears (Minister of State (Policing, Security and Community Safety), Home Office; Salford, Labour)

There are two fundamental elements to the stops process. The first is the bureaucracy—that word has fallen into disrepute. I remember saying during our debate on bail conditions that some bureaucracy is necessary, particularly when dealing with a service that has the power to interfere with other people’s liberty. Sometimes the way in which we use the word is derogatory, but it is important in a democracy to have proper systems to ensure accountability.

The hon. Member for Arundel and South Downs (Nick Herbert) alleges that the bureaucracy of filling in the forms outweighs the benefit of the accountability that we would gain from the process, but I believe that the requirement to fill in the details of a stop, which was a recommendation of the Macpherson report, falls firmly into the category of necessary bureaucracy. Like all hon. Members, I am keen to fulfil that recommendation in a way that minimises the time that officers spend recording the encounters; that is why we are considering electronic recording and why many officers now have hand-held computers that, in some cases, enable them to send information directly back to the police station.

The hon. Gentleman said that every stop takes seven minutes. In fact, 75 per cent. of stops are carried out in less than five minutes, which includes the encounter and the completion of the form. It is not a lengthy, bureaucratic process; it takes relatively little time. On average, as he says, a police officer has to do it once every 2.2 hours, so we are not talking about a police officer spending his whole day filling in forms; that is an unfair caricature of the process.

It is important to hold police officers to account for their actions. That is why we have a stop-and-search action team that works intensively, not just on encounters but on stop-and-search and on terrorism powers, to ensure that there is no disproportionality in the system. We also have an independent community panel, which works with the stop-and-search action team, again to ensure that the sensitive issues associated with the way in which the powers are exercised are properly taken into account. The process that is in place for stops and stops-and-searches is a   key element in local accountability and in increasing public confidence in the police officers who serve their neighbourhoods.

In 2007 we shall publish the figures on the number of stops in each force area. We started collecting them in April 2005, so we will have had a chance to monitor the data. I am sure that the hon. Member for Hornsey and Wood Green will be grateful for that.

When the provision was introduced, the Police Federation voiced its concern about the impact on its members. However, I am delighted that, late last year, it acknowledged that the use of stops is a legitimate tool based on operational requirements combined with intelligence-led policing. Being able to record and monitor stops and knowing where the activity takes place helps its members to build up an intelligence picture of where problems might occur, so that they can target their resources to ensure that they carry out more effective policing. That is a big shift, and I am grateful to the Police Federation for having expressed that point of view. It is now working with us and a range of other stakeholders to establish how we can squeeze out the bureaucracy of filling in the forms to make it easier. It has been suggested that people might be given a receipt, and that they could get in touch if they wanted further information. That and the use of electronic equipment would enable the work to be done more quickly.

Martin Horwood (Shadow Minister (Environment), Environment, Food & Rural Affairs; Cheltenham, Liberal Democrat)

On the subject of electronic means, would the Minister be willing to explore the use of global positioning systems, which could instantly record the place and time the second that an officer wished to start recording an incident? That might save several of the minutes involved in filling in the form.

Hazel Blears (Minister of State (Policing, Security and Community Safety), Home Office; Salford, Labour)

I am always willing to look at ways in which we can make our police service more efficient and effective. I am sure that that idea has been considered. If it has not, the relevant bodies will want consider whether it is a practical proposition, and I shall be interested to know whether that is the case.

The hon. Member for Arundel and South Downs mentioned the report from the London School of Economics evaluating the impact and recording of stops and the good practice that is emerging from the different ways in which that is done across the country. I can tell him that is will be published on the popular Home Office website, to which we have previously referred in this Committee, on 30 March, so it will be available if he wants to look at it before we reach the later stages of the Bill. On that basis, I ask him to withdraw the amendment.

Nick Herbert (Shadow Minister (Police Reform), Home Affairs; Arundel & South Downs, Conservative)

I am grateful to the Minister and I have a few comments on her response. First, she talked about the benefits of accountability and said that it was clear that there was a net benefit in this circumstance. The problem is that the benefits are difficult to measure; they are intangible benefits to do with giving ethnic minority communities confidence in the way in which they are policed—and, as the hon. Member for Hornsey and Wood Green said, giving police officers themselves confidence.

Until we have seen the figures, it will be difficult to assess the impact of the stop form. However, I am not sure that I accept the Minister’s point that relatively little police officer time is devoted to the issuing of the forms. We do not know the extent to which, after 18 months, police officers are being deterred from making stops because of the existence of the forms. Going by conversations that I have had with police officers of all ranks, there is a great deal of anecdotal evidence to that effect.

Lynne Featherstone (Shadow Minister, Home Affairs; Hornsey & Wood Green, Liberal Democrat)

Perhaps I should have declared an interest, having been vice-chair of stop-and-search scrutiny on the Metropolitan Police Authority. It was not a pecuniary interest.

In May 2004 Home Office figures showed that black people were eight times and Asian people five times more likely to be stopped and searched than white people. When we scrutinised those figures, it was difficult to track a link between stops, stops-and-searches, charges and convictions. The two sides of the equation were not there to track, so we could not judge whether it was an effective tool. When those figures are available, if they were linked to success in terms of charge or conviction, that might add to the knowledge base from which we can make a judgment. I would be wary of stopping in advance of having all the information.

Nick Herbert (Shadow Minister (Police Reform), Home Affairs; Arundel & South Downs, Conservative)

I am grateful to the hon. Lady. The Government have made their position clear. I am sure that the Minister will have noted the hon. Lady’s suggestion regarding the analysis of those figures.

The Minister correctly quoted the latest views of the Police Federation, which made it clear that its willingness to accept the requirement for the recording of encounters was partly because the Home Office was exploring technical solutions to reduce bureaucracy. That is a tacit acceptance that there is bureaucracy about which there is concern. We look forward with interest to the outcome of that work. It is worth reflecting on the Police Federation’s conclusion that:

“Finally, there needs to be a move away from the negative implications surrounding disproportionality promoted by critics, to the police service seeking a positive process of explanation and engagement with the communities affected.”

That is correct. I am concerned that when the figures become available and are published, we will return to the potentially divisive debate that we had before.

I am grateful to have had the opportunity to explore these issues. I await with great interest the publication of the report on 30 March on the Home Office’s infamous website. I do not resile from the principle that the form should be withdrawn, but I accept that the new clause might not be an appropriate means by which to achieve that. I therefore beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion.