The number of police in London schools will more than double, a senior officer told MPs at an inquiry into knife crime today.

Mark Simmons, assistant commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, told the Commons Education Select Committee that the force was investing in putting more officers in schools.

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“We are investing heavily in more officers working full-time in schools. We have gone from 280 or so 12 to 18 months ago to 420 officers full-time, and our ambition is to get to just under 600,” Mr Simmons told the committee.

More police in London schools

He was speaking in response to a question on whether, if knife crime is suspected, pupils should be stopped and searched.

“[Stop and search] needs to be balanced with engagement,” Mr Simmons said. “We need young people to see the police not just as the person who stops them in the street and searches them, even though that may be an absolutely proportionate, legitimate thing to do, but also as someone who can become familiar to them, who can be approachable, who can engage with them day to day within school.

“It’s a really important part of our approach. It’s a major investment for us.”

Sir Michael Wilshaw, a former Ofsted chief inspector, said that it was known that stop and search had alienated some groups in society so it had to be used sensitively.

But he added: “Most headteachers I know would stop and search a youngster they suspect of carrying a weapon. Certainly, I did that, my senior staff did that. I resisted putting barriers up in school, alarms in school to identify metal when they came in - metal detectors. I resisted that because you don’t want our schools to be prison-like.

“But a lot of these youngsters will go home and pick up a knife and, if they’re in a gang, use it.”

The inquiry comes amid growing concern about knife crime after 41 fatal stabbings in the first two months of this year in England and Wales.

Earlier this month, police chiefs linked the rise in knife crime to a “broken” school exclusion system. Amanda Spielman, Ofsted’s chief inspector, rejected this claim, saying that the violence might be better explained by the problems that led to the exclusion rather than the exclusion itself.