BRADFORD West MP Naz Shah is leading a Westminster Hall debate in Parliament tomorrow to raise concerns about the effect of police stop and search powers on black and ethnic minority communities.

She will argue that understandable public anxiety about increased knife crime is fuelling mistaken demands for greater use of police stop and search powers.

She claims this is what Prime Minister Theresa May, in her previous role as Home Secretary, described as “a knee-jerk reaction on the back of a false link”.

Ms Shah said: “The research evidence is clear, there is no proven link between the use of police stop and search and reduced crime. But what the evidence does show is that black and Asian young people are overwhelmingly more likely to be targeted than white people. Eight times more likely if you are black, twice as often if you are Asian. The impact of stop on search on perceptions of the police is catastrophic.”

“For many BAME young people being stopped and searched may be their first encounter with the police. The consequences are hugely damaging for community relations when the government’s own evidence reveals that this disproportionality is due to unconscious prejudice or outright racism.”

“As Home Secretary, Theresa May accepted this evidence and promised significant reform; changes to community accountability, monitoring of traffic stops, and removing the power to stop and search from officers who had routinely misused it.

“But during the last two years progress has stalled and the figures demonstrate that we are returning to the bad old days.”

“It is time that the government held the police to account and delivered on its promises for reform”