Knife and Sword Ban

Alex Cunningham Excerpts

Tuesday 6th February 2024 Commons Chamber

[Alex Norris]

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for his intervention, and that will be part of my case, so I am sure I will be able to meet that test.

It feels like most days we wake up to another tragic story of death and families torn apart. The most basic search online tells us it is all over the country—Bristol, Feltham, Warrington, Haverhill. My own community of Nottingham was rocked last summer when my constituent Ian Coates and University of Nottingham students Barnaby Webber and Grace O’Malley-Kumar were killed with a knife, and I stand with their families in their attempts establish the facts and failings in this dreadful case.

Things are getting worse, not better, and that means more young lives lost, more children drawn into crime and more exploited by criminals. We know this has a huge impact on our society: hundreds of families crippled by grief for murdered loved ones; life chances of young people squandered; potential left unfulfilled; and the criminals getting away with it and going on to cause further misery. Knife crime destroys lives, devastates families and creates fear in our communities. That is why this debate matters. We must invest in our young people so that they are supported to make the right decisions in life, and we must come down hard on those involved in knife crime—real support, real consequences.

[Alex Cunningham (Stockton North) (Lab)]

Under the Conservative Government and a Conservative police and crime commissioner, Cleveland has the highest crime rate in the UK, and only this weekend we saw another serious stabbing a mile down the road from me in Norton village. We hear the Government try to talk the talk but the bottom line has to be that they are not taking the necessary actions. I am sure my hon. Friend will agree.

[Alex Norris]

I share my hon. Friend’s view. He talks of a case in his community, and we are waking up seemingly so many days in every week with another case in another area in villages, towns and cities. The public are rightly looking for action from us, and that is what I will be setting out in my explanation of this motion.