Knife Crime

Baroness Doocey Excerpts

Wednesday 15th April 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Davies of Gower (Con)]

My Lords, we meet at a time when too many people in this country still feel less safe in their streets and less confident in the criminal justice system. We know the threat of knife crime; in Committee on the Crime and Policing Bill, we on this side of the House pointed out that, in the year ending March 2025, there were 528,582 stop and searches in England and Wales, including 5,572 under Section 60 of the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994. In the year ending June 2025, there were 51,527 knife offences, and 1.1 million incidents of violence, with or without injury, recorded by the police.

The Government now say that they will halve knife crime in a decade, and we all want that, but targets without a clear plan are not enough. Can the Minister say how they are going to empower police to tackle knife crime with confidence? If the Government want officers to act decisively to prevent violence, they must also ensure that officers who act lawfully and proportionately feel properly backed. That is why we must prevent the Independent Office for Police Conduct from reopening an investigation into the same conduct after a police officer has been prosecuted and acquitted, unless there is substantial new evidence. We have made that argument forcefully in debates on the Crime and Policing Bill, and we will revisit that tomorrow.

The Government must not undermine police confidence when we need more proactive policing. Although the Government speak of neighbourhood policing expansion, the fact is that overall police officer numbers have fallen by more than 1,300 since the Government took office, including particularly sharp falls in the Metropolitan Police when knife crime is at its worst in London. What impact has the fall in police numbers had on overall crime levels and on perceptions of safety in communities? What steps are Ministers taking to expand the numbers of police officers, and when will they deliver on their manifesto commitment to recruit more police?

In Committee on the Crime and Policing Bill, we proposed lowering the threshold for Section 60 from “anticipated serious violence” to “anticipated violence”. Unfortunately, the Government declined. What was their answer? The Minister said in response that

“if we wish to make an impact on knife crime, stop and search is a tool in extremis but better education, youth futures programmes and policing hot spots are more effective ways of reducing the problem overall”.—[Official Report, 20/1/26; col. 150.]

I can say with confidence that hotspot policing and targeted funds are all very well but hotspots cannot police themselves, and the Government have still not gone far enough in strengthening police powers or in giving forces the numbers they need.

We need stronger controls on dangerous weapons and tougher restrictions on knife sales. In government, we Conservatives banned zombie knives. Can the Minister tell the House what impact in measurable terms the new ban on ninja swords has had on knife crime? Disappointingly, the Government have also opposed a Conservative amendment that would have increased the maximum sentence for possession of a weapon with intent to commit unlawful violence from four years to 14 years. Of course prevention matters, but it is complementary to, not a replacement for, a tough sentencing policy.

That brings me to youth hubs, youth centres and the wider youth offer. We want there to be investment in youth outreach and early intervention. How will the money be spent, how will success be measured and how will resources be redirected if schemes do not work?

This matters all the more because the Government’s broader economic policy risks undermining the very stability that they claim to be building. Young men do not drift into gang culture and street violence in a vacuum. Where there are few opportunities to prosper, young people are more vulnerable to exploitation and more likely to join illegal gangs. That is why it is entirely proper for this House to ask whether the Government’s wider tax-and-spend choices are making matters worse. If you make it more expensive to hire and to take a chance on a younger worker, it is entry- level jobs that disappear first, and the vulnerable young person finds legitimate work just out of reach. Gangs do not recruit in prosperous conditions; they recruit where the formal economy has receded and the illicit economy looks, to a teenager, like the only market left.

I am not claiming that every unemployed young person turns to crime—that is not true; far from it—nor do I diminish the individual’s responsibility for their actions, but a weaker youth labour market creates more fertile ground for exploitation, including by county lines gangs and organised criminal networks. Indeed, we have consistently challenged Ministers directly on youth unemployment and the effect of the Government’s economic choices on hiring. The public deserve better and I believe this Government have some way to go yet.

[Baroness Doocey (LD)]

My Lords, we welcome the Government’s new strategy in broad terms. It is the right direction of travel. There is much in Protecting Lives, Building Hope to support the focus on prevention, early intervention and joined-up local action. These are principles that the Liberal Democrats have long championed, and it is good to see them reflected in national policy.

Knife crime continues to harm too many lives and too many communities. Many areas still feel the effects of reduced youth services and local support. Rebuilding these networks must be central, and I am encouraged that the strategy recognises that. The principle behind the plan is sound. If delivered well it can do lasting good, but success depends on sustained funding. Prevention cannot be turned on and off with budget cycles. Youth work and early intervention succeed only when they are steady and trusted.

Resources should be directed where fear and harm are greatest. Knife crime shapes how young people move about their area, how safe they feel and where they go. A data-driven approach is sensible, provided that it is used carefully and does not erode trust or concentrate suspicion unfairly. Real neighbourhood policing, visible, consistent and rooted in local knowledge, remains the best safeguard against that.

Technology and crime mapping can help, but that is not the whole answer. Ours is already one of the most surveilled countries in the world and London alone is the most heavily monitored city in Europe. Knife crime, however, is a human problem requiring human connection. Innovation should complement proper front-line presence and strong community partnerships but never replace them, and we must guard against technology that subtly changes the nature of society or erodes rights and freedoms.

The strategy rightly points to the role of social media in glamorising violence, spreading fear and helping criminal networks to recruit and communicate. But we have reached the stage where policing online platforms requires more than new laws and rhetoric; it demands sustained, visible enforcement. The Online Safety Act provides for serious criminal penalties. What the public want to know now is how often these powers are used.

One area which needs clarity is the future of serious violence reduction orders, which allow stop and search of known offenders without suspicion. The Liberal Democrats have long had concerns about their proportionality and impact on public confidence. Can the Minister confirm whether they will continue and when Parliament will see the pilot evaluation? If they are not to be extended, we should understand why, and if future use is being considered, the evidence should be published in full.

This strategy contains many of the right elements. The challenge now is delivery and ensuring that those commitments lead to genuine, lasting change on the ground. The Liberal Democrats will support that ambition and work constructively to make it happen.

[The Minister of State, Home Office (Lord Hanson of Flint) (Lab)]

I am grateful for the broad support from the noble Baroness, Lady Doocey, for the Government’s approach. This was a manifesto commitment to ensure that we tackle knife crime and halve it in the period of the action plan that we have brought forward today.

I just want to say to the House as an opener that the success to date in the last two years has also seen a reduction in knife crime as a whole. In the year before the start of this Parliament—2023-24—knife crime rose by 4% and by 4% in the year before that. Since the start of this Parliament, overall knife crime is down 8% and knife-related homicides and hospital admissions for assault with a sharp object are at their lowest level in a decade, dropping 27% and 11% respectively. Knife-enabled assaults are down by 9%, knife-enabled robberies are down by 10%, and more than 63,000 knives have been taken out of circulation, including in ninja sword surrender schemes that that we introduced following the ban on ninja swords last year.

The noble Lord, Lord Davies of Gower, mentioned London. Since this Government were elected, knife crime in London has fallen by 7%. There were 15,981 offences in the last year of his Government, compared with 14,860 offences in the first year of this Government. So there is success but there is still individual challenge and individual responsibility is still required.

The knife crime action plan is a very substantial document and I recommend that noble Lords look at it in detail. It reflects a number of the concerns mentioned by both Front Benches, including the fact that we need to look at prevention, targeted hotspot work and supporting young people, particularly to avoid them getting involved in gangs. That is not just an aspiration from this Government. We will launch 50 Young Futures hubs by the end of this Parliament; the initial eight opened last week. We are putting an extra £66 million into the serious violence reduction programme. We are rolling out 50 Young Futures panels. We have provided £1.2 million for safety through school partnerships in 250 schools in knife crime hotspots, and have put £26 million into the knife crime concentrations fund.

It might interest the House to know that 27 police force areas make up 90% of the total knife crime in this country. It makes sense, therefore, as the noble Baroness, Lady Doocey, said, to try to focus resources on those hotspot areas. In this plan, we have now put £34 million into funding the county lines programme. We have put money into the pupil premium to look at funding violence-reduction programmes in those hotspot areas. We have put £15 million through the Ministry of Justice into interventions for children who are approaching the cusp of the criminal justice system but who should be moved away from it; and we are putting money into safer research and safer streets as a whole. As can be seen, this involves the MoJ, the Department for Education, the Department of Health and the Home Office: this is a cross-government strategy to try to ensure that we reduce knife crime by half, as in the plan before us.

The question of stop and search is important, and we need to use it proportionately, as the noble Baroness, Lady Doocey, said. It may surprise the House, and I hope will not horrify it, to know that 15,955 knives were recovered last year alone through stop and search. Without stop and search, those 15,955 knives would have been in people’s pockets, potentially being used to additionally attack, in either a robbery or an assault, or being used for defensive purposes leading to injury or death as a result of knife crime. We certainly need to look at the challenges of stop and search to make sure that it is fairly approached and done in a proper, effective way. I cannot, however, get away from the fact that almost 16,000 knives were found on people through both random stop and search and through intelligence-led policing, where we know that individuals may be knife carriers. Finding some 15,955 knives in one year is a deterrent, but it is also an important issue.

The question of sentencing is also important. The noble Lord, Lord Davies of Gower, has tabled amendments to the Crime and Policing Bill. He knows that tomorrow we will deal with those amendments. The Government have reflected on the concerns that he put, legitimately, on behalf of HMG Opposition. Tomorrow, there will be amendments that will move some way towards increasing the level of sentence as a whole. He will also know that the Government have a range of issues to do with prohibiting the purchase of knives online, stricter laws on age verification, checks on sale and delivery—all of which are in the Crime and Policing Bill, which I hope will receive favourable consideration for Royal Assent shortly. By autumn of this year, we will begin to put into practice the measures that have been legislated for in both Houses to help increase the restriction on knives as a whole.

On 16 December last year, we also launched a public consultation on a licensing scheme for those who sell knives or bladed articles, including importers, retailers and private sellers. That follows recommendations made in the end-to-end review on online knife sales to introduce a registration scheme to ensure that we have a minimum standard and that we can monitor those issues. We also have a range of measures going forward on the police numbers issue that the noble Lord mentioned. One of the purposes of the Government’s action was to focus again on neighbourhood policing, local police in local hotspots, and we have put 3,100 additional police officers and police community support officers into neighbourhood roles in less than a year. We have a plan to bring forward 13,000 additional neighbourhood personnel by the end of this Parliament.

That is the most important thing. Neighbourhood police officers know their flock, know the businesses and know the individuals in their community. They can gather intelligence, provide support to individuals, look at where gangs are operating and help co-ordinate interventions, along with the funding that we are providing in this plan. We will have a debate about police numbers, but the importance of having police in a neighbourhood is critical, and that is what the Government are trying to do with this proposal, in parallel to the action plan as a whole.

The House will know that this is an extremely difficult task. I will look at the points that the noble Baroness, Lady Doocey, has mentioned, reflect on those and, if need be, respond to her by letter. This is an extremely thorough plan. It has new resource going to it to help meet its objectives, it is cross-government, it is paralleled with legislation currently before this House, and we will continue to work to improve neighbourhood policing over the course of this Parliament. Can we stop all knife crime? No, we cannot. Can we have an objective of achieving a halving of knife crime? Yes, we can. I pay tribute not just to Home Office officials but the police, community groups, campaigners and victims of knife crime who have helped formulate this plan. I hope that the House will give it its full support.