Shame the noble Lord doesn't know what hes talking about.
Funny, as I listened to Lord Carlisle on Radio 4 this morning I thought of you. He talked about good old fashioned policing and that police should just talk to people and there was no need to fill in all these forms. And he expected supervisors to be telling their staff likewise.
Oh if only that were true. but the fact is the government has created a bureaucratic monster where they want EVERYTHING recorded and measured. Its ironic really. He's right in a way, the police could have just asked, and given a reasonable answer would have been happy.
BUT in order to prove that Police aren't picking on minority groups they are told they MUST fill in records. In fact I'll go further and give you good odds that the number of stop and searches they carry out is one of the officers performance indicators.
That's a good document you've linked to. I wonder has Lord Carlisle seen it since his comments seemed to indicate that he has no notion of the powers that require no suspicion.
His contention that the powers if overused could be removed. In fact the opposite is probably the case. The continued use of them is in fact the justification of their continuing necessity. Cunning eh? Which law do you repeal, the only never used or the one used all the time?
But he didn't exactly say police were misusing the powers they had (even though he doesn't appear to understand them). I'm not convinced either that the issue is as high profile or widespread as you imply.
The specific photographer referenced by Lord Carlisle was speaking today as well. he said the police were polite and professional and his only issue was that they recorded his details which was, as you yourself say, for statistical purposes to avoid appearing biased.
you might not like it but in order to PREVENT crimes, something we expect police to do, they need to ask questions.