Draft Criminal Justice Act 1988 (Offensive Weapons) (Amendment) (England and Wales) Order 2026

(Limited Text - Ministerial Extracts only)

Wednesday 1st July 2026 General Committees

[The Minister for Policing and Crime (Sarah Jones)]

I beg to move,

That the Committee has considered the draft Criminal Justice Act 1988 (Offensive Weapons) (Amendment) (England and Wales) Order 2026.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Wishart. The draft order seeks to amend the definition of “ninja sword” in the list of prohibited offensive weapons by amending the definition contained in the Criminal Justice Act 1988 (Offensive Weapons) Order 1988. I will briefly set out the context.

The existing legislation, which bans ninja swords, followed a manifesto commitment to respond to the tireless campaigning by the family of Ronan Kanda, who was just 16 when he was fatally stabbed in 2022 by a person using a ninja sword. In 2024, the Government ran a public consultation on the proposed definition of a ninja sword in order to ban the weapons, in line with our aim to halve knife crime within a decade. The consultation sought views from the public and interested stakeholders on a draft definition of a ninja sword.

Ninja swords are defined as a bladed article with a blade between 14 inches and 24 inches in length, with one straight cutting edge and a tanto-style point. That length was chosen in order to exclude knives and tools designed for legitimate purposes, such as many kitchen knives and other types of knives. In order to be within scope of the ban, the article should also have the features described in paragraph 1(u) of the schedule to the 1988 order, namely: a “primary…cutting edge”, a “secondary…cutting edge” and a “blunt spine”, with either a “tanto style point” or a “reversed tanto style point”. Those terms are further defined in the detail of the legislation. We introduced legislation following analysis of the consultation responses, and ninja swords became prohibited from 1 August 2025.

However, the Government recently became aware that the wording of the legislation does not correctly describe the length of the secondary straight cutting edge of a ninja sword, as was intended. The draft order therefore seeks to rectify that and align the legislation with the original intention. To be clear, this amendment is a technical clarification to existing secondary legislation banning ninja swords. Although the amendment to the definition widens the scope of the existing wording, it does not introduce new offences, bring any ninja swords out of scope, or impose additional requirements on the public.

Under section 141 of the Criminal Justice Act 1988, it is an offence to possess, import, manufacture, sell, hire, offer for sale or hire, expose or possess for the purposes of sale or hire a weapon specified in an order made under that section. The legislation contains a detailed description of the tanto-style or reversed tanto-style point of the sword. The legislation states that

“a secondary straight cutting edge is a cutting edge…which forms an angle with the primary straight cutting edge and the spine, and…is no more than 5% longer or shorter than the width of the blade immediately after the handle.”

The reference to the 5% is incorrect and limits the scope of what size of tip falls under the legislation.

We therefore propose to use the order-making powers under section 141(2) of the Criminal Justice Act 1988 to amend the definition to:

“a secondary straight cutting edge is a cutting edge…which forms an angle with the primary straight cutting edge and the spine, and…is no more than 105% longer than the width of the blade immediately after the handle.”

That correction will allow the legislation to function as intended and remove any ambiguity about which swords fall within scope of the definition. We have also included an additional diagram in the explanatory note to make the definition easier to understand—it certainly helped me, and it may be useful for Members.

To conclude, the Government are determined to stop dangerous weapons getting into the wrong hands, and this clarification will assist the police in exercising their powers to prevent violence and keep the public safe. I commend the draft order to the Committee.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sarah Jones]

I associate myself with the hon. Lady’s remarks about Ronan Kanda’s family and their tireless campaigning. We are very grateful to Ronan’s mother and sister for being part of our coalition to tackle knife crime. They give their time freely and generously, and we spend lots of time listening to what they have to say. They are pushing us, as they should, to go further in tackling knife crime. Their work has led us to consulting on a licence regime for knife sales—we are working through that at the moment—and they keep pushing us to do more. We have had some success, with a 10% fall in knife crime and a 27% fall in knife murders, but we have a long way to go.

To reassure the hon. Lady, we understand there have been no cases in which the legislation has impacted on any outcome. We have talked to the police about it and sought to rectify the error that was made as soon as we could. In no case has somebody not ended up going to court because of this problem. We are right to fix it as soon as discovering it, and that is what we are doing. I hope that the Committee is reassured that we are doing the right thing as quickly as we can, and that we will continue to bear down on knife crime.

Question put and agreed to.