New Clause 12 - Recording of encounters not governed by statutory powers
Police and Justice Bill
1:00 pm
Nick Herbert (Shadow Minister (Police Reform), Home Affairs; Arundel and 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.