NEIL Gerrard MP has raised concerns about proposals to reduce the amount of information police must record when conducting stop and searches.

The Government is proposing a range of new measures in the Crime and Security Bill, including reducing the number of details officers are required to take down when searching people under the Police and Criminal Evidence Act (PACE).

Home Secretary Alan Johnson says the move will help police reduce bureaucracy.

But during a Commons debate on the bill, Walthamstow MP Neil Gerrard said: "There will not be any need to record whether anything was found during the stop and search, whether any injury or damage were caused to the person stopped, or their name.

"Monitoring will continue in relation to ethnicity, but not age.

"We need to consider what the consequences of that might be.

"If someone wished to make a complaint that a stop and search was unlawful, or wished to show in their defence in a case that they had been stopped and searched two or three times in the same day, that sometimes happens, they would find it very difficult without names and other details being recorded."

Mr Gerrard also voiced concern about the number of stops in recent years under section 44 of the Terrorism Act and section 60 of the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994, both of which, unlike PACE, do not require an officer to have reasonable grounds for suspicion before conducting a search.

Referring to a debate back in 1994 when the section 60 powers were brought in, Mr Gerrard said: "We were told that the power would be used only in exceptional circumstances, when a superintendent considered that there was the possibility of serious violence in their area.

"However, the power is being used absolutely routinely in certain police forces, as a method of doing stop and search without having to have suspicion regarding the individuals concerned."

Mr Gerrard cited Home Office figures which show there were 6,000 stops under section 60 in Waltham Forest alone - more than three times the figure for the whole of London nine years ago.

The Crime and Justice Bill also establishes new time limits for holdng of DNA samples.

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