Knife Crime in London

(Limited Text - Ministerial Extracts only)

Wednesday 12th February 2025 Westminster Hall

[The Minister for Policing, Fire and Crime Prevention (Dame Diana Johnson)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship this morning, Mr Efford.

I thank the hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam (Luke Taylor) for securing this very important debate. I think that we both took part in a Westminster Hall debate a little while ago about knife crime in the west midlands, which was another important opportunity to shine a light on this very concerning problem.

I want to mention the other hon. Members who have spoken, too. The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) talked about zero tolerance, my hon. Friend the Member for Ilford South (Jas Athwal) talked about how important it is to have the police in our communities, because they are vital to keeping those communities safe, and my hon. Friend the Member for Hammersmith and Chiswick (Andy Slaughter) talked about practical suggestions to address knife crime. I have said before that I am willing to look at any of the issues that might help us to address knife crime.

[Andy Slaughter]

I am grateful to the Minister for being so generous with her time, as she was in meeting the safer knives group to discuss this issue. I am not expecting a policy position today, but perhaps she could say when the Government are likely to come forward with proposals on the scourge of knife crime that is affecting us.

[Dame Diana Johnson]

It is fair to say that we are looking constantly at what more we can do. Although I cannot give a timetable, perhaps I can reassure my hon. Friend by saying that the issue is under active consideration, and we are keen to look at evidence and consider what more we might be able to do on the particular point that I know he is interested in.

The hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam powerfully illustrated the depth of concern about knife crime, and I am grateful for this opportunity to set out the Government’s approach to tackling it. It is important to say that it is a whole-of-Government approach, which fits very well within our safer streets mission and with our clear objective to halve knife crime over the course of the next 10 years.

Before I talk a little more about the particular policies that we will adopt, I want to remind all hon. Members that we must keep at the forefront of our minds the people who are directly affected by this dangerous and, in the worst cases, deadly threat. The victims of knife crime and their loved ones must all be in our thoughts and prayers, today and always. I was really interested to hear about the excellent work of the Chris Donovan Trust. I really would like to find out more about that, and perhaps meet the trust to see what more I can do to support it.

First and foremost, as I said, this has to be about keeping people safe. It is about ensuring that more families do not go through the agony of that empty chair at the dining table. The tragic truth is that knife crime destroys lives and, too often, young lives with futures that should have been filled with hope and potential are lost. That is why we described it as a national crisis in our manifesto and why, as I said, we set ourselves the aim of halving knife crime in a decade, as part of the safer streets mission.

I will talk a little about the coalition to tackle knife crime, to set the context. The Prime Minister launched the coalition in September. It brings together campaign groups, families of those who have tragically lost their lives to knife crime, young people who have been impacted, and community leaders—united in their mission to save lives. We are very pleased that there is representation from London in the coalition. It will work with the Government to help us identify the children and young people at risk of being affected by knife crime. It will help us to design policy changes and reforms based on the best possible evidence and, most importantly, tackle the root causes of knife crime.

I heard what the hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam said about the importance of education. I recently wrote to the Secretary of State for Education about the curriculum review, including on relationships and sex education, to ensure that knife crime and what it means can be part of that review. I must also say to the hon. Gentleman that, to be frank, half an hour is not long enough for this debate, so I will take away a number of his asks and come back to him with information and a way forward.

When it comes to tackling this most dangerous of threats, it is essential that we have resources going into our neighbourhood policing. Few things matter more than the presence of community policing, to which my hon. Friend the Member for Ilford South referred. That is why the restoration of neighbourhood policing is at the heart of our plans to reform policing, and why we have committed to delivering an additional 13,000 police officers, PCSOs and specials in neighbourhood policing roles.

As the hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam will know, as part of the police settlement, we have doubled to £200 million the amount of money going into neighbourhood policing for next year to kick-start the neighbourhood policing guarantee. That will apply to the Metropolitan police as well. I heard loud and clear his concerns about abstraction, but the neighbourhood policing guarantee is about those additional officers who will be in neighbourhoods. They will not be abstracted. There will be a named police officer that the community can reach out to.

I absolutely agree with the hon. Gentleman that the Metropolitan police faces some very big challenges. It is important to note that progress has been made on the “A New Met for London” plan. In recent weeks, the Met came out of the “engage” process with the police inspectorate, so progress is being made. As a Minister, I have regular meetings with the Metropolitan Police Commissioner and other officers to ensure that the Home Office is providing all that we can to support Sir Mark in his work.

This morning, I heard Sir Mark on the radio talking about the judicial review case yesterday. I assure the hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam that work is ongoing to deal with the particular issue that Sir Mark was talking about this morning. I think we all agree that we want to have police officers—in the Met and every police force—who are able to do their job effectively and are properly vetted, and that anyone who cannot hold vetting as a police officer should not be in the police force. Please rest assured that that work is ongoing.

I want to talk a little bit about Young Futures, which the Government are putting forward as part of the solution to knife crime. Too many children and young people today face poorer life outcomes, including becoming involved in knife crime, because they are not effectively identified and supported early enough through early intervention. To address that issue, we have committed to creating the Young Futures programme, which will establish a network of Young Futures hubs and Young Futures prevention partnerships to intervene earlier to ensure that this cohort is identified and offered support, as well as creating more opportunities for young people in their communities through the provision of open access to, for example, mental health, careers and mentoring support.

Young Futures hubs will bring together the support services that tackle the underlying needs of vulnerable children and young people, making them more accessible to those who need them. The hubs will promote children’s and young people’s development, improve their mental health and wellbeing, and prevent them from being drawn into crime.

Young Futures prevention partnerships will bring together key partners in local areas across England and Wales to identify vulnerable children and young people at risk of being drawn into crime, map local youth service provision, and offer support in a more systematic way to divert them. I also note the comments that the hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam made about securing funding for the long term, and I will reflect on those.

I also want to mention violence reduction units. One of the issues that we face, especially in the prevention sphere, is the number of agencies that are involved. By bringing together partners and mobilising them behind the same goals at local level, violence reduction units perform a really important role. In response to the drivers of violence and knife crime, they have been delivering a range of early intervention and prevention programmes to support young people away from a life of crime, including activity across all 32 boroughs through the London crime prevention fund, enabling the local adoption of a public health approach and borough-level violence reduction interventions.

Violence reduction unit programmes span from police custody to the community—some of which Members might have seen featured in Idris Elba’s recent knife crime documentary for the BBC. They include the excellent work under way at the Royal London hospital, which I had the great privilege of visiting yesterday. I met the dedicated team of youth workers who provide support to young people at a critical teachable moment—when they are admitted for violent injuries—and provide positive routes out. The confirmed police funding settlement for next year includes over £49 million for the continuation of this work to prevent serious violence, delivered through violence reduction units. In London, that amounts to £9.4 million, which was announced yesterday.

The Labour Government have also made a commitment on youth offending team referrals for young knife carriers. We are working closely with the Ministry of Justice to deliver that manifesto commitment to ensure that every young person found in possession of a knife is referred to a youth offending team, with mandatory plans in place. That can include electronic monitoring and custody where appropriate to prevent reoffending.

The hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam referred to stop and search, which is an important tool. I am well aware of issues around different communities being searched in different ways, but, used in an intelligence-led way, it can be very fair and effective. It is worth reflecting on the fact that in the 12 months to March 2024, stop and search led to 4,048 offensive weapons and firearms being found by the police in London. It has its place in the arsenal that the police can access.

We have already started to deal with some other issues around knives. For example, we have implemented a ban on zombie knives and zombie-style machetes, which came into force on 24 September. We have consulted on a ban on ninja swords, and we hope to bring that forward shortly. We have had Commander Stephen Clayman at the National Police Chiefs’ Council leading a review of online sales, and the Home Secretary has announced in the last few weeks that the Government intend to strengthen age verification controls and checks for all online sellers of knives at the point of purchase and on delivery. We have also consulted on introducing personal liability measures on senior executives of online platforms or marketplaces who fail to take action to remove illegal content relating to knives and offensive weapons.

I thank the hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam for securing this important debate. I think we are all seeking the same outcomes: a reduction in knife crime and safer streets. Those objectives are central to the Government’s plan for change, and we will do everything in our power to achieve them.

Motion lapsed (Standing Order No. 10(6)).