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Terrorism Bill

I apologise to the Minister for the misunderstanding on our Benches about who would speak when. I shall start where the Minister began. The problem on stop and search powers is that a balance has to be struck. They are undoubtedly often a very effective weapon against terrorism and serious crime, as the Minister indicated, but on the other hand their use arouses a great deal of concern and often a considerable sense of threat and intimidation among people who, for one reason or another, feel particularly vulnerable to stop and search procedures. The noble Baroness will know that since the 7 July attacks there has been a substantial increase in the use of stop and search under Section 44. More people have been stopped and searched since then than in the whole of the preceding year. The noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy of The Shaws, quoted the troubling evidence given by the Metropolitan Police Authority. It refers to the impact on attitudes and opinions particularly among minority communities, which the Committee should pay careful attention to. That is also borne out by the remarks of the most senior Muslim officer in the Metropolitan force, Mr Ghaffur, who indicated that stop and search was a double-edged weapon. The police must rely strongly on information from the minority communities. There is no better base for what the noble Baroness rightly referred to as intelligence-based policing. Yet if those communities are alienated—the evidence of the Metropolitan Police Authority was certainly that they were being increasingly alienated—that information and intelligence will not be forthcoming and the battle against terrorism will be weakened. The noble Baroness referred to PACE code A, which says that religious belief should not be a factor in determining the use and targeting of stop and search procedures. However, there is also now a requirement that the person stopped and searched must be informed by the police officer and that that matter should be recorded. Code G, which has recently come into force—the noble Lord, Lord Bassam, referred to it in a debate on 9 December—has an attractive aspect, saying that an arrest should take place only if the police officer is convinced of its necessity. The noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy of The Shaws, specifically included a test of necessity, not a test of expediency, in her amendment. I therefore wonder whether the Minister might consider the appropriateness of that aspect of the amendment, part of which she obviously does not willingly accept. Will she consider whether the test of necessity fits better with code G than merely a test of expediency, which is much more open to criticism and to a belief that the police officer concerned may be prejudiced in the steps he has taken? The amendment also measures proportionality. The Minister eloquently defended the argument—as she usually does—about proportionality, but the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy of The Shaws, referred to the rolling authorisation under Section 44 for the whole of London over the past two years. It is hard to see how that could be described as proportionate. Is the whole of London really at risk in such as way as to justify stop and search powers over the whole city for such a long period? I respect the Minister’s concern about getting the balance right, but part of the argument behind the amendment is that the balance is not quite right. The balance has drifted a little too far towards measures that allow stop and search over wide areas and long periods. Members of the Committee will be as aware as I am that the sense in London of our being under very close police surveillance is very different from that which obtains in many other cities. It is interesting that West Yorkshire Police, which might be considered to have a specific and difficult problem, given that several of the 7 July people came from that county, are very reluctant to use stop and search powers, specifically because they recognise their alienating effect on the community that they are obliged to police. I hope that the Minister will consider very carefully whether there cannot be some tightening up of the authorisation on such wide bases, both geographically and temporally, of current stop and search powers and whether that might not improve and increase the level of support and co-operation from all our communities as compared with the difficulties pointed to by the Metropolitan Police Authority and Commissioner Ghaffur.