Oral Answers to Questions

Abena Oppong-Asare Excerpts

Wednesday 30th November 2022 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

Like my hon. Friend, the Government are committed to tackling violence against women and girls, and to making our streets safer. We created the safer streets fund, which funds additional patrols, extra lighting and more CCTV. The StreetSafe online tool allows users, including those in her constituency, to pinpoint locations where they feel unsafe so that local police can take appropriate action. I will continue to support her in her efforts.

[Abena Oppong-Asare (Erith and Thames-mead) (Lab)]

Q2. Two 16-year-old boys, Charlie Bartolo and Kearne Solanke, were tragically killed in my constituency this weekend, and my heart goes out to the families and friends left behind. We really need to come together across the House to address and tackle serious youth violence, so may I ask the Prime Minister what he is doing to address the knife crime epidemic?

[The Prime Minister]

I thank the hon. Lady for her question and join her in expressing condolences to the family and friends of the two boys; I also read about it and it is an awful tragedy. She rightly asks what we are doing to make our streets safer and stamp out the scourge of knife crime. We are boosting the number of police officers; as she will know, with 15,000, on our way to 20,000. We are also giving them the powers they need to get knives off our streets, including by lifting restrictions on stop and search, and introducing new court orders to target known knife offenders. I agree with her that this is something we need to do more on, and she should know that the Government will be fully committed to tackling it.