Offensive Weapons Bill

Lord Kennedy of Southwark Excerpts

Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 30th January 2019 Grand Committee

Moved by

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark]

41: Clause 17, page 17, line 22, at end insert—
“(aa) the seller is not a trusted trader of bladed products, and”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment would create a trusted trader status for those selling bladed products.

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab Co-op)]

My Lords, Amendments 41 and 43 in the name of my noble friend Lord Tunnicliffe are intended to enable a trusted trader scheme and status to be set up for sellers of knives and other bladed products in the UK. As drafted, the Bill will prohibit the delivery of bladed objects and products to residential properties. The concern is that this will have a detrimental impact on the business of small and medium-sized knife manufacturers and retailers here in the UK. As more and more sales move online, consumers normally expect to receive their deliveries at home. My colleagues in the Opposition fully support the aims of the Bill, but have concerns that this is a legislative sledgehammer that will affect small and medium-sized businesses here in the UK, while having very little impact on knife crime. To achieve the objectives we all want to see delivered—a reduction in knife crime and violence, but at the same time not damaging or destroying businesses—I suggest that we need a greater enforcement of existing legislation that prohibits the sale of knives to under-18s and the carrying of a knife without good reason. The amendments we are debating will seek to enable good, well-run businesses to operate in a trusted trader scheme, while not causing difficulties or putting their businesses at risk.

I understand that the Home Office carried out a consultation between October and December 2017 on these issues, with more than 10,500 responses. On 25 July, the Minister for Crime, Safeguarding and Vulnerability, Victoria Atkins MP, wrote to my friend the Member for Sheffield Central in the other place, Mr Paul Blomfield MP. In her response, the Minister indicated that there were concerns over the delivery of knives purchased to residential premises, and concerns about the sale of knives online to under-18s—which, of course, is already illegal—but that some sellers were not doing enough to stop children buying knives.

My friend Paul Blomfield, Clive Betts and some Sheffield knife manufacturers met the Minister on 15 January. The department had looked at the trusted trader scheme, but seemed to rule it out on the basis that it would add more bureaucracy and burden to the businesses. They looked at placing the burden on delivery companies, and the measures in this Bill.

It is an offence under the Criminal Justice Act, as we know, to sell knives and other bladed products to a person under the age of 18. But there is a defence if the person can prove that they took steps to make all reasonable precautions and exercise due diligence to avoid committing an offence. The sellers will have to meet these conditions to rely upon that defence but the industry also agrees with the objectives of the Bill: to reduce knife crime and make it more difficult for people under the age of 18 to order knives. Many businesses already exercise robust age-verification checks and label their packets accordingly. Their concern is that the Bill’s prohibition on selling bladed products to residential premises will cause them particular damage.

This is about the damage to small and medium-sized businesses, with its knock-on effect on UK manufacturers. The larger retailers and a lot of companies often buy their knives from overseas, so there is really no issue for them. But these small producers are selling niche and often highly priced products, which are not sold anywhere by the large companies. The industry would like some evidence. What is the evidence of people purchasing knives online to commit crime? Apparently, there are roughly 424 million knives in the UK at the moment and there is little or no evidence that people buy knives online to go out and commit a crime. There are plenty of knives around everywhere. The Metropolitan Police and the Cutlery and Allied Trades Research Association have suggested that most knives used in violent crime are old knives, which people can get their hands on from a variety of sources.

The trusted trader scheme would in effect mirror what is presently in place for the delivery of alcohol. Such a scheme would help to drive up standards across the board while providing protection for responsible businesses. Coupled with better enforcement of existing legislation, the scheme would help and not impede small and medium-sized enterprises. The industry wants this, so the objection from the Government that it would mean more bureaucracy does not really hold water for me. If there is a choice between a ban—not being able to sell your products for delivery to homes—and having a scheme which ensured that you verify who you are selling to, this would be better for them. I look forward to the Minister’s response.

[Lord Paddick]

My Lords, while I understand what the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, is trying to do with his amendment, if he is quoting the Government correctly then I agree that it would be an expensive, bureaucratic scheme and difficult to enforce. It would be impossible to enforce in relation to sellers outside the United Kingdom. It would be to the benefit of large retailers. Perhaps the amendment is trying to appeal to the Home Office’s usual approach to these things by saying that it should be self-financing. Membership of the scheme would clearly involve a fee; large retailers would easily find the money for that, whereas it would disadvantage small businesses.

As we discussed previously in relation to corrosive substances, we are again heading for a situation where UK sellers of bladed articles are unable to sell such products for delivery to residential premises, whereas overseas sellers will be able to sell bladed articles for delivery to home addresses. In the case of overseas sellers, the courier has to ensure age verification at handover but UK sellers are unable to use this scheme. The real solution to the problem that the noble Lord is trying to solve is to allow age verification at the handover of bladed articles at residential premises for all sellers, both UK and overseas, so that both corrosive substances and bladed products can be delivered to people’s homes.

As the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, has just asked, what evidence is there that gang members, for example, are ordering ordinary kitchen knives, such as carving knives, online in order to use them in crime? I am not talking about prohibited knives, such as zombie knives or the type of knife that the Government seek to ban in the Bill. The evidence from the police is that most people carrying knives have got them from the kitchen where they live because they are there already. Why would a criminal who is looking to commit knife crime create an evidential trail by ordering online rather than going to a shop and paying cash to get their hands on a weapon? I seek the Government’s explanation as to why this provision is necessary.

We discussed on Monday whether a residential premises is used for carrying on business. I have had a communication from a company that deals with the sale of bladed items online. It says:

“Our information after consulting Royal Mail and UPS is that there are no means to quickly and robustly identify tradesmen who operate from home as opposed to individuals who might pose as tradesmen. These so-called defences are wish fulfilment from the Home Office and are unworkable in the real world”.


I agree.

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[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

The noble Lord, Lord Paddick, is right. I am very grateful to him because now I do not have to explain it.

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark]

I thank all noble Lords who have spoken in this short debate. I probably forgot to ask the Minister to meet a delegation of Sheffield MPs and businesses concerned before Report. I am sure she will.

There have been some really interesting figures in this debate. We have 424 million knives in circulation and 71 prosecutions of companies selling knives online incorrectly. If the Bill goes ahead, we will ban businesses operating in the UK selling knives online, but if they are based in France, Germany or the United States, it will be fine—off you go, no problem at all. That is some of the nonsense that we have here.

I respect the Minister very much, but I was disappointed by her response. I do not believe she has made the case for this. As other noble Lords have said, we are not convinced that this part of the Bill will do what it seeks to achieve. If that is the case, I would be very happy if it were not in the Bill at all. I moved this amendment because the industry is keen to avoid this ban and to have something else in place, and it has been working with Sheffield MPs on this. This amendment was put forward in the Commons and I have put it forward again today. This is not a scheme we have dreamed up.

These businesses sell niche products that are not available in most shops. If you go into a big shop, the knives in them are likely to have been made in China and elsewhere. These are businesses whose products have not been bought by high street retailers and which now survive by selling their products online. We are now going to make that harder for them without any particular evidence that it is causing problems. If you are going to go out and commit crime with a knife, where would you go? I would go to my knife drawer at home—I have a load of knives in there. That is what people would do. I do not believe that people are buying these knives online to commit crimes. As the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, said, they would be creating an evidence trail if they are then hauled up. For me, that is a problem.

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

I hope the noble Lord will not mind if I intervene on that point. He is right that, if you want to commit knife crime, you could go to your kitchen drawer and probably get a fairly effective weapon out of it. But that is not the nub of this legislation or of what we are trying to achieve. There are a number of interventions we are trying to make. I think I explained right at the outset when I introduced the Bill that no one intervention is going to solve the problem in and of itself. It is the range of measures that we have in place, including this legislation, that we hope will reduce what has become a scourge in society which is blighting the lives of young people.

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[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

The challenge is to get to a situation where children do not feel they need to carry knives for their protection or in order to attack others.

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark]

I thank my noble friend for that point, although I am not sure that I agree with him.

As I was saying, I do not believe the Government have made their case on this. We have seen 71 prosecutions and the evidence here. There are issues with knives and we all want to see knife crime reduced. This is the classic case of the Government using a sledgehammer to crack a nut.

The Minister nodded to say that she would be happy to meet the Sheffield MPs and knife manufacturers. This is about the high-end, niche manufacturers who do not, or very rarely, sell their products in UK stores any more but almost wholly online. We will potentially damage their businesses but, at the same time, allow firms abroad to sell here with no restrictions whatever. That is regrettable.

I will leave it there for now. I will bring this issue back on Report—I guarantee that—but before then we can have that meeting and try to persuade the Government to look at this again. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 41 withdrawn.

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[Lord Garnier (Con)]

Clause 20(1)(d) requires that,

“that person was aware when they entered into the arrangement that it covered the delivery of bladed articles”.

Is there any provision which requires a foreign exporter of bladed instruments to identify on the outside of the packaging what is inside it so that nobody can be in any doubt that what is being posted from, let us say, Holland is a knife with a 10-inch blade? If it says on the outside of the packet, “This is a butter knife”—subject to one believing the description on the label—that might prevent a number of the problems that we seem to have been discussing. It seems fairly simple to stick a label on the outside which places the burden on the original seller, makes the importer or functionary aware of what they are handling and makes the postman or parcel deliverer to the address or corner shop concerned equally aware of what is going on. It could not cost very much to stick a label on.

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark]

The noble Lord make a very valid point. I shall certainly read Hansard carefully, because some of the Minister’s responses may have been contradictory. If I was a manufacturer of high-end knife products in Holland or Germany, I would be very pleased when the Bill became law because I could then launch a big campaign. I would know that the British Government were attempting to hamstring manufacturers in their own county but that I could carry on selling this stuff with no problem at all. We have no jurisdiction beyond our own borders. All we are doing here is hurting British business on the basis of very little evidence.

[Lord Lucas]

My Lords, as usual, I need educating. How is even a British business to know that a particular address is residential? What source of information do the Government expect a seller of knives to use to establish whether, for instance, 1 Lavender Hill SW11 is a residential or business address, particularly when in such a location there is probably a shop on the ground floor and flats above? What source of information will be reliable and satisfactory in a prosecution for someone to demonstrate that they believed reasonably that it was not a residential premises?

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[Lord Kennedy of Southwark]

I think the Minister referred to premises that are registered for business purposes. That could be a home, could it not? If I work from home, knives could be delivered to my home.

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

The noble Lord is right that a house could be registered for business purposes because it could be a business. I think we went through that on Monday. Clause 20 creates an offence relating to overseas sales, with the focus on ensuring that the delivery company does not deliver a bladed article into the hands of a person under the age of 18. I think that was all I was going to say on the subject and the amendments. I know that the foreign company versus the UK company issue will come back again and again, but I hope the noble Lord will be happy to withdraw his amendment.

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark]

On that point, this is very anti-British business for no obvious reason or benefit for anybody concerned. If I were a German company or a French company, I would be delighted with this legislation.

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

The noble Lord will know that the last thing this Government want to do is to make things difficult for British companies, but we want to clamp down on some of the terrible effects of knife crime.

[Lord Lucas]

My Lords, the Government have certain contradictions in the way they are approaching this. Suppose a Dutch company sells a knife to a residential address. It drops it into the post, nicely wrapped as a parcel with nothing on the outside to indicate what the contents are. Who puts the contents of a parcel on the outside? I cannot recall when a package came to me containing something I had ordered over the internet which said obviously on the outside what was on the inside. The Royal Mail, which looked at this, has no ability to know that the parcel contains a bladed product. The only point at which it becomes possible to know that is at the point of importation.

I know the Government have systems—and I know what they are, but I am not going to describe them in public—for preventing the importation of weapons, firearms in particular, which would apply very nicely to the importation of knives. That is the point at which we as a country know that there is a knife, and since the Government have oversight of the process through which it is being imported, that is the point at which they can establish whether the address is likely to be residential premises. If we want this to be an effective prohibition against a company abroad sending a knife to a residential address here, we need to give those authorities the power to confiscate the knife at that point. I propose one way of doing that, and there are surely many others, but we absolutely need to do it.

The other way in which an overseas sale can get into residential premises is if I apparently order from a website abroad. That website abroad telegraphs its fulfilment house here and someone in that fulfilment house takes the knife out of a box, puts it in a package, addresses it and pops it into the post. There we have someone absolutely within our jurisdiction who knows that it is a knife and who should know that the premises are residential, but we are not catching them. We cannot expect the poor old postman to know what is in the package. We have two very good opportunities to intercept knives and other bladed products coming in from abroad. I do not mind how the Government achieve that, but it is so easy to get knives from abroad. If someone really wants to get a knife delivered to residential premises all they have to do is order it from overseas and it will happen without interruption because sellers will organise themselves so they do not get their delivery agents into trouble. They will just use the Royal Mail. These are small items that do not require special delivery and fit through postboxes.

The amendments show that there are good, easy, efficient and effective ways in which the Government can get a bite on the main streams of supply from overseas agents. As my noble friend said, overseas agents will respond by sticking a label on the outside. If that is what they are asked to do, and if that is what it takes to get it through customs, that is fine—in supplying all over the world, they are used to customs regulations. This is not hard or expensive for us to do; it is easy, and it is the only thing that makes sense of the Government’s interest in stopping the ordering of knives over the internet. If we stop only UK sellers and leave the door wide open to overseas sellers, we are not achieving anything other than obstructing UK business.

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark]

Does the noble Lord agree that the Committee generally agrees with the laudable aims of the Bill but on all sides we are highlighting the large holes in it? It is easy to make a mockery of what is being set out here. I hope that the Government will listen carefully to this. We want to have discussions between now and Report so that we can get this legislation right. Where we are at the moment is honestly ridiculous. The more discussions I hear now, the worse things seem to me.

[Lord Paddick]

I echo the noble Lord’s comments. We want to do whatever it takes to reduce the availability of knives for use in knife crime. I hope that, in all our discussions, it has not gone unnoticed that we oppose this group of amendments and the previous group.

I will probably be disciplined by my party for saying so but, presumably, if you are buying from a supplier outside the customs union, there needs to be a customs declaration on the package as to what is contained in it. That is a legal requirement. It is not about trying to get a foreign supplier to comply with British law; rather, it is internationally accepted that you need to put a customs label on a package describing what is inside. I do not know whether that applies if the supplier is within the European Union, but certainly if you buy something from the United States of America, for example, there has to be a visible customs declaration on the outside to say what the product inside the parcel is. That would enable whoever is delivering the parcel to the end delivery point to take the appropriate action in accordance with Clause 20, if the label describes that it is a bladed product.

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[Lord Paddick]

My Lords, I too look forward to the Government’s explanation of the difference between “bladed product” and “bladed article”, and of why there is a distinction between the offence of delivering of a bladed product to residential premises and that of delivering a bladed article to persons under 18. I thought the whole point—no pun intended—of banning delivery to residential premises was to prevent under-18s getting their hands on it. Why does it need to be a bladed article in one part and a bladed product in another?

In relation to Amendment 45, I agree with the noble Lord and would go further. In the course of my duties as a police officer, I have seen daggers with very sharp points, but with blades not necessarily sharp enough to cut—the dagger is specifically designed to stab people, but is not capable of cutting. It would be exempt from the definition as written in the Bill. I am not sure whether it is necessary to list examples of what are and are not bladed products, but we certainly need a much better idea of what we are trying to do here.

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark]

I was not intending to come in on this item, but the more I sit here listening to this Bill, the more concerned and confused I get. I support the intentions of the Government in trying to deal with knife crime and violence—they are absolutely right there—but, listening to this, I am not convinced we are on the right track.

Is the Minister aware of the Better Regulation Executive? It is part of BIS, or whatever the department is called now, and is in charge of regulatory reform across the British Government. Its policy is described in these terms:

“Some regulations are ineffective and unnecessary. Complying with them costs businesses time and money, and can restrict economic growth … Governments generally attempt to ensure regulations are fair and effective. The Better Regulation Executive's purpose is to effectively strike the right balance between protecting people’s rights, health and safety and freeing them from unnecessary bureaucracy”.


If it has not gone there already, the Bill needs to go there straightaway. Clearly, there is a lot of mess in this Bill. I say it should go there because we are affecting lots of British businesses and putting them at a competitive disadvantage to other businesses in Europe and around the world. We need to get our businesses up and working well, and I do not see how this is helping. Maybe it has gone there already and been improved by it. If it has not, I hope we can get the Bill off to it and maybe get something back before Report.

[Lord Paddick]

My Lords, would the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, agree that perhaps his trusted traders scheme would also need to go through that process?

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark]

I certainly would. I would be delighted for it to go through the process, because the scheme I have been keen we talk about has come not from me, but from the industry. They want the scheme, so I would be delighted for it to go there, since they are the people who make these niche products and are worried that the Government are putting them at a competitive disadvantage.

[The Earl of Listowel]

My Lords, I wonder how the rest of the world deals with these issues. The Minister may have described that to us at some point. The situation clearly seems to cry out for international co-operation if there are serious issues in other nations with knife crime and corrosive substances. For instance, what does Germany do with regard to these issues? I know that recent circumstances here have changed very rapidly, so it may be an issue just in this country. The United States probably has an even more significant problem with it and may be more resistant to intervene than we would be.

Knife crime is a symptom of many other things, including, as we were hearing yesterday, our issues around drugs. We heard from two police officers, one a retired undercover drugs detective. He was saying that since the introduction of the Misuse of Drugs (Amendment) Regulations 1988, we have seen a soaring in the number of people using drugs. He pointed out that 10% of users take up 50% of the supply of serious drugs; so 10% of chronic heroin users are consuming 50% of the drugs market.

If one addressed the needs of these drug users, as we used to do before the misuse of drugs Acts—if we provide users quickly with methadone and with safe places to take drugs—the demand would disappear and the supply would shrink. These would perhaps be more effective options. Maybe the Minister can write to us about what happens in other nations and how they deal with these issues.

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[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

That is good. These would not fall within the definition in the Bill as they do not generally have a blade. It is our intention that the definition of “bladed product” excludes those articles with a blade that are unlikely to cause serious injury if used as a weapon. They might include cutlery, fans and lawnmowers—which he mentioned—among other things. We believe that it is unlikely that such items will be procured by persons under 18 to be used as weapons. We also want to exclude articles that can cause serious injury only other than by cutting, for instance when used as a blunt object. Ultimately, it will up to the courts to determine whether an item is or has a blade and is capable of causing serious injury by way of cutting the skin. However, we will issue guidance in consultation with the police and business to provide further clarity on this and other provisions in the Bill.

Perhaps I might add that Amendment 46 highlights the risk of including an indicative list of examples in legislation, which brings complications of its own. For example, one might ask why the list includes screwdrivers but not chisels, or lawn mowers but not hedging shears and so forth. It is better, I suggest, to leave it to the police, prosecutors and the courts, supported by the guidance to which I have referred, to determine relevance in the circumstances of each situation.

This leads me to Amendments 44, 47, 55 and 56, which would change the types of articles to which Clause 20 applies from “bladed articles” to “bladed products”. My noble friend Lord Lucas has rightly asked why, in Clause 20, the term “bladed articles” is used rather than “bladed products”. A bladed product is defined in Clause 19 as,

“an article which … is or has a blade, and … is capable of causing a serious injury to a person which involves cutting that person’s skin”.

“Bladed article” is defined by Clause 20(11), in the case of England and Wales, as an article,

“to which section 141A of the Criminal Justice Act 1988 applies”.

My noble friend referred to this.

Section 141A applies to: any knife, except a folding pocket knife with a blade of three inches or less; any knife blade; any razor blade, except those permanently enclosed in cartridges; any axe; and any other article which has a blade or which is sharply pointed and which is made or adapted for use for causing injury to the person. “Bladed article” therefore captures a wide range of articles with a blade from kitchen knives to cutlery knives, scissors, and so on. This is the language used in the Criminal Justice Act 1988 in relation to the sales of knives and possession offences. “Bladed product” refers to a smaller set of items with a blade: those which can cause serious injury by cutting the skin, as defined in Clause 19. The effect of Amendments 44, 47, 55 and 56 would therefore be that the range of articles to which Clause 20 applies would be smaller than is currently the case in the Bill.

I hope that my noble friend is reassured by the provisions in Clauses 17 to 20. If a bladed article is delivered on behalf of a seller based abroad, the delivery company has the responsibility to ensure that the item is not handed over to a person aged under 18, whether the seller uses a marketplace platform or sells direct, or whether the item is delivered to a private address or a collection point. As I said earlier, we cannot enforce legislation against a seller who is based abroad but, in this instance, we have the ability to place the onus on the person who delivers the merchandise here to ensure that they do not deliver a bladed article into the hands of a person aged under 18.

The noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, asked about the business impact. I concur with him that we should be concerned about the impact on British businesses. We have published an impact assessment alongside the Bill, which can be found on the Bill’s page on GOV.UK.

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark]

So would this not have gone to the Better Regulation Executive to look at?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

In terms of better regulation, I do not think that it has but I will double-check before Report. It probably has not.

The noble Earl, Lord Listowel, asked about the position in other countries and the approach we have taken. Of course we always learn from other jurisdictions, and I hope that they learn from us, but we must legislate as we consider it appropriate to address the position as we find it in this country. Regarding the problems underlying drug addiction, we will come on to that when we reach Amendment 63 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, who I do not think is in her place at this point.

I want to make one final point about articles with a blade or point: we do not want to capture items such as screwdrivers and crochet needles because they are not usually used for harm—that is not to say they are not used for harm, but not usually. Hence we are referring to “blade” and not “sharp point”. I hope that, with those explanations, the noble Lord will withdraw his amendment.