Knife Crime

Mohammad Yasin Excerpts

Tuesday 14th April 2026 Commons Chamber

[Sarah Jones]

I welcome the hon. Lady’s welcoming of the statement—it is appreciated.

Stop and search is a really important tool. I am not entirely sure what “saturation stop and search” is, but if we stopped and searched everybody, all our police would spend all their time stopping and searching people to no particular end. Stop and search has to be evidence-based and targeted, and that is what the police are doing. We support that. We want more intelligence-led stop and search. It is a good thing, but anyone who thinks that it is the only answer misunderstands the problem. We have to prevent crime from happening in the first place, as well as to tackle the perpetrators who are already involved and make sure we address reoffending. Doing one intervention without all the rest is not going to work, which is why our action plan involves multiple Government Departments, lots of funding, and lots of support from the Prime Minister down.

[Mohammad Yasin (Bedford) (Lab)]

Bedfordshire police welcomes the Government’s plan to refer all child knife possession cases to youth justice services, building on its work with the NHS, schools, charities and community groups to discourage under-16s from carrying knives. Can the Minister outline how the new national co-ordination unit will crack down on illegal online knife sales in order to strengthen such local partnerships, which are working to prevent young people from having knives in the first place?

[Sarah Jones]

I thank my hon. Friend for his question and pay tribute to the police in Bedfordshire, who I know are doing a really good job.

Among all the agencies he talked about, the NHS has a really important role to play. Of course, we put youth workers into most of our A&Es, so that if a young person who has been stabbed comes in, we have some chance of intervening with them to get them out of the cycle of violence they are involved in. The brilliant investigative police officers at the new National Knife Crime Centre will be investigating the sale of knives online. That will be a focused piece of policing work, and the Government are providing £1.7 million for it. Those officers will look at the sale of knives online and go after the people who are selling them illegally. Increasingly, we are seeing young people in the grey market buying knives in bulk and selling them to each other. We are going to make that very difficult for people to do, but where it does happen—where knives are coming in from countries that they should not be coming from, where age verification checks are not being done, and where companies are making money in a way that is not legal—we will come down on them like a ton of bricks.

Police Reform White Paper

Mohammad Yasin Excerpts

Monday 26th January 2026 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Judith Cummins)]

To ask a nice short question, with a nice short answer, I call Mohammad Yasin.

[Mohammad Yasin (Bedford) (Lab)]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I welcome the Government’s reform agenda in support of our mission for safer streets. In Bedfordshire, Operations Boson and Costello—tackling guns, gangs and organised drugs crime—have driven major arrests and a 15% fall in antisocial behaviour in Bedford town centre, backed by £7.3 million in special grants. Will the Home Secretary commit to maintaining these grants or to integrating them into core police funding to ensure that effective, evidence-based, local crime reduction programmes continue to protect our communities?

[Shabana Mahmood]

We will say more about specific funding in the coming days, so I will not be tempted to say any more about that now. The White Paper makes it clear that, as we roll out a new structure with regional forces, we will take the opportunity to review the police funding formula.

Oral Answers to Questions

Mohammad Yasin Excerpts

Monday 5th January 2026 Commons Chamber

[Mohammad Yasin (Bedford) (Lab)]

My constituent, a migrant care worker, was asked to pay £3,600 to her employer, a private care company, for a sponsorship application that never happened. The company is now keeping the money, with no legal reason, and refusing to engage with my constituent. This is not the only case I am aware of. Will the Minister take stronger action, including suspending licences and prosecuting companies that exploit vulnerable workers?

[Mike Tapp]

It is important that we hold dodgy employers to account. Penalties are in place for those employing illegal workers, as is a potential prison sentence for illegal working. In the care sector, we saw hundreds of thousands come into the country to fill a very small number of jobs, so it is right to stop this social care visa at this point.

Oral Answers to Questions

Mohammad Yasin Excerpts

Monday 17th November 2025 Commons Chamber

[Sarah Jones]

The hon. Gentleman will know that we are committed to the implementation of the Equipment Theft (Prevention) Act 2023 and fully support its intentions. Indeed, it was brought forward by a Member of his own party—the hon. Member for Mid Buckinghamshire (Greg Smith). We support the Act and are working with colleagues across the policing landscape to ensure that we can do just that. But I will not take any lessons from the shadow Minister who left crime in the state that it was, had no rural crime strategy, unlike this Government, and whose record took our police away from our neighbourhoods—we will put them back.

[Mohammad Yasin (Bedford) (Lab)]

5. What steps her Department is taking to introduce more neighbourhood police officers.

[Alice Macdonald (Norwich North) (Lab/Co-op)]

20. What steps her Department is taking to introduce more neighbourhood police officers.

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

As part of the neighbourhood policing guarantee, we have made £200 million available to police forces this financial year to kick-start the journey towards delivering 13,000 additional neighbourhood policing personnel. By April 2026, there will be 3,000 more neighbourhood police across England and Wales, strengthening police visibility and neighbourhood policing to help to deter, prevent and respond to crime.

[Mohammad Yasin]

I welcome the Government’s decision to phase out police and crime commissioners, with the savings reinvested into frontline policing. I also warmly welcome the recent grant for additional wardens to tackle antisocial behaviour hotspots. The partnership between the council, community groups and the police has reduced antisocial behaviour in Bedford town centre by nearly 15%, but much more still needs to be done. What further reforms will the forthcoming White Paper include to help Bedfordshire police get more bobbies on the beat?

[Sarah Jones]

I am pleased to see the progress made, and I would love to visit again, as I did with the Prime Minister in opposition, to see that progress in action. There are two aspects to where we are, and we will be making significant changes. One is through the Crime and Policing Bill, which contains new powers for us to tackle antisocial behaviour in our town centres—respect orders being just one example. Our wider police reform will also look at the entire policing landscape in a way that the Opposition completely failed to do in government. We will make it more efficient and effective and ensure that our police are targeted where the public want them in our communities.

Oral Answers to Questions

Mohammad Yasin Excerpts

Monday 13th January 2025 Commons Chamber

[Dan Jarvis]

The UAE is an important international partner for the UK, but of course other countries have their own rules on designation and it would not be appropriate for the Government to comment on their processes. I can say to the hon. Member that extremism has no place in our society and that we work very closely with law enforcement, local communities and our international partners to tackle groups and any individuals who seek to sow division and hatred.

[Mohammad Yasin (Bedford) (Lab)]

My deepest condolences go to the family and friends of 17-year-old Thomas Taylor, who was fatally stabbed in Bedford last week. Bedfordshire has some of the highest knife crime rates in the country. While I welcome the increased funding for the force and the progress made on tackling knife crime in the region, will the Secretary of State ensure that the special grants awarded to Bedfordshire police in recognition of the high level of serious and violent crimes in the region are maintained? Will she outline what further steps are being taken to deter young people from carrying lethal weapons?

[Yvette Cooper]

I think the thoughts of all of us will be with the family and friends of Thomas Taylor, who was a constituent of my hon. Friend. He is right to say that we need comprehensive work to prevent knife crime and to prevent young people from carrying knives in the first place, but also to make sure that there is swift action where crimes take place.