Knife Crime in London

Debate between Diana Johnson and Andy Slaughter

Wednesday 12th February 2025 Westminster Hall

[The Minister for Policing, Fire and Crime Prevention (Dame Diana Johnson)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship this morning, Mr Efford.

I thank the hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam (Luke Taylor) for securing this very important debate. I think that we both took part in a Westminster Hall debate a little while ago about knife crime in the west midlands, which was another important opportunity to shine a light on this very concerning problem.

I want to mention the other hon. Members who have spoken, too. The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) talked about zero tolerance, my hon. Friend the Member for Ilford South (Jas Athwal) talked about how important it is to have the police in our communities, because they are vital to keeping those communities safe, and my hon. Friend the Member for Hammersmith and Chiswick (Andy Slaughter) talked about practical suggestions to address knife crime. I have said before that I am willing to look at any of the issues that might help us to address knife crime.

[Andy Slaughter]

I am grateful to the Minister for being so generous with her time, as she was in meeting the safer knives group to discuss this issue. I am not expecting a policy position today, but perhaps she could say when the Government are likely to come forward with proposals on the scourge of knife crime that is affecting us.

[Dame Diana Johnson]

It is fair to say that we are looking constantly at what more we can do. Although I cannot give a timetable, perhaps I can reassure my hon. Friend by saying that the issue is under active consideration, and we are keen to look at evidence and consider what more we might be able to do on the particular point that I know he is interested in.

The hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam powerfully illustrated the depth of concern about knife crime, and I am grateful for this opportunity to set out the Government’s approach to tackling it. It is important to say that it is a whole-of-Government approach, which fits very well within our safer streets mission and with our clear objective to halve knife crime over the course of the next 10 years.

Before I talk a little more about the particular policies that we will adopt, I want to remind all hon. Members that we must keep at the forefront of our minds the people who are directly affected by this dangerous and, in the worst cases, deadly threat. The victims of knife crime and their loved ones must all be in our thoughts and prayers, today and always. I was really interested to hear about the excellent work of the Chris Donovan Trust. I really would like to find out more about that, and perhaps meet the trust to see what more I can do to support it.

First and foremost, as I said, this has to be about keeping people safe. It is about ensuring that more families do not go through the agony of that empty chair at the dining table. The tragic truth is that knife crime destroys lives and, too often, young lives with futures that should have been filled with hope and potential are lost. That is why we described it as a national crisis in our manifesto and why, as I said, we set ourselves the aim of halving knife crime in a decade, as part of the safer streets mission.

I will talk a little about the coalition to tackle knife crime, to set the context. The Prime Minister launched the coalition in September. It brings together campaign groups, families of those who have tragically lost their lives to knife crime, young people who have been impacted, and community leaders—united in their mission to save lives. We are very pleased that there is representation from London in the coalition. It will work with the Government to help us identify the children and young people at risk of being affected by knife crime. It will help us to design policy changes and reforms based on the best possible evidence and, most importantly, tackle the root causes of knife crime.

I heard what the hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam said about the importance of education. I recently wrote to the Secretary of State for Education about the curriculum review, including on relationships and sex education, to ensure that knife crime and what it means can be part of that review. I must also say to the hon. Gentleman that, to be frank, half an hour is not long enough for this debate, so I will take away a number of his asks and come back to him with information and a way forward.

When it comes to tackling this most dangerous of threats, it is essential that we have resources going into our neighbourhood policing. Few things matter more than the presence of community policing, to which my hon. Friend the Member for Ilford South referred. That is why the restoration of neighbourhood policing is at the heart of our plans to reform policing, and why we have committed to delivering an additional 13,000 police officers, PCSOs and specials in neighbourhood policing roles.

As the hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam will know, as part of the police settlement, we have doubled to £200 million the amount of money going into neighbourhood policing for next year to kick-start the neighbourhood policing guarantee. That will apply to the Metropolitan police as well. I heard loud and clear his concerns about abstraction, but the neighbourhood policing guarantee is about those additional officers who will be in neighbourhoods. They will not be abstracted. There will be a named police officer that the community can reach out to.

I absolutely agree with the hon. Gentleman that the Metropolitan police faces some very big challenges. It is important to note that progress has been made on the “A New Met for London” plan. In recent weeks, the Met came out of the “engage” process with the police inspectorate, so progress is being made. As a Minister, I have regular meetings with the Metropolitan Police Commissioner and other officers to ensure that the Home Office is providing all that we can to support Sir Mark in his work.

This morning, I heard Sir Mark on the radio talking about the judicial review case yesterday. I assure the hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam that work is ongoing to deal with the particular issue that Sir Mark was talking about this morning. I think we all agree that we want to have police officers—in the Met and every police force—who are able to do their job effectively and are properly vetted, and that anyone who cannot hold vetting as a police officer should not be in the police force. Please rest assured that that work is ongoing.

I want to talk a little bit about Young Futures, which the Government are putting forward as part of the solution to knife crime. Too many children and young people today face poorer life outcomes, including becoming involved in knife crime, because they are not effectively identified and supported early enough through early intervention. To address that issue, we have committed to creating the Young Futures programme, which will establish a network of Young Futures hubs and Young Futures prevention partnerships to intervene earlier to ensure that this cohort is identified and offered support, as well as creating more opportunities for young people in their communities through the provision of open access to, for example, mental health, careers and mentoring support.

Young Futures hubs will bring together the support services that tackle the underlying needs of vulnerable children and young people, making them more accessible to those who need them. The hubs will promote children’s and young people’s development, improve their mental health and wellbeing, and prevent them from being drawn into crime.

Young Futures prevention partnerships will bring together key partners in local areas across England and Wales to identify vulnerable children and young people at risk of being drawn into crime, map local youth service provision, and offer support in a more systematic way to divert them. I also note the comments that the hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam made about securing funding for the long term, and I will reflect on those.

I also want to mention violence reduction units. One of the issues that we face, especially in the prevention sphere, is the number of agencies that are involved. By bringing together partners and mobilising them behind the same goals at local level, violence reduction units perform a really important role. In response to the drivers of violence and knife crime, they have been delivering a range of early intervention and prevention programmes to support young people away from a life of crime, including activity across all 32 boroughs through the London crime prevention fund, enabling the local adoption of a public health approach and borough-level violence reduction interventions.

Violence reduction unit programmes span from police custody to the community—some of which Members might have seen featured in Idris Elba’s recent knife crime documentary for the BBC. They include the excellent work under way at the Royal London hospital, which I had the great privilege of visiting yesterday. I met the dedicated team of youth workers who provide support to young people at a critical teachable moment—when they are admitted for violent injuries—and provide positive routes out. The confirmed police funding settlement for next year includes over £49 million for the continuation of this work to prevent serious violence, delivered through violence reduction units. In London, that amounts to £9.4 million, which was announced yesterday.

The Labour Government have also made a commitment on youth offending team referrals for young knife carriers. We are working closely with the Ministry of Justice to deliver that manifesto commitment to ensure that every young person found in possession of a knife is referred to a youth offending team, with mandatory plans in place. That can include electronic monitoring and custody where appropriate to prevent reoffending.

The hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam referred to stop and search, which is an important tool. I am well aware of issues around different communities being searched in different ways, but, used in an intelligence-led way, it can be very fair and effective. It is worth reflecting on the fact that in the 12 months to March 2024, stop and search led to 4,048 offensive weapons and firearms being found by the police in London. It has its place in the arsenal that the police can access.

We have already started to deal with some other issues around knives. For example, we have implemented a ban on zombie knives and zombie-style machetes, which came into force on 24 September. We have consulted on a ban on ninja swords, and we hope to bring that forward shortly. We have had Commander Stephen Clayman at the National Police Chiefs’ Council leading a review of online sales, and the Home Secretary has announced in the last few weeks that the Government intend to strengthen age verification controls and checks for all online sellers of knives at the point of purchase and on delivery. We have also consulted on introducing personal liability measures on senior executives of online platforms or marketplaces who fail to take action to remove illegal content relating to knives and offensive weapons.

I thank the hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam for securing this important debate. I think we are all seeking the same outcomes: a reduction in knife crime and safer streets. Those objectives are central to the Government’s plan for change, and we will do everything in our power to achieve them.

Motion lapsed (Standing Order No. 10(6)).

Contaminated Blood and Blood Products

Debate between Diana Johnson and Andy Slaughter

Thursday 24th November 2016 Commons Chamber

[Diana Johnson]

It is very worrying to hear that there has not been any progress on what is happening in Northern Ireland, so the Minister needs to explain to the House what work is going on.

[Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on being one of the leaders of this campaign. It is clear that the Scottish scheme is more generous than the one in England. Does she agree that at the very least the Government should ensure parity, and in particular that nobody should be worse off under the new scheme than they were under the old scheme?

[Diana Johnson]

My hon. Friend makes that point very well. Later I will compare and contrast the Scottish scheme, which is more generous.

--- Later in debate ---

[Diana Johnson]

I will come on to the ways in which I think the funding that the Government have put together could be used more effectively to assist more people who have been affected by receiving contaminated blood, including the hon. Lady’s constituent.

I will talk a little about the overall funding of the new scheme. There is much that the Government could do to improve the scheme without any additional cost to the public purse. Even if the Scottish proposals, particularly those for widows and primary beneficiaries, were adopted in England, they would fall within the budget that has been allocated for every year save 2016-17. That is set out in an analysis conducted by the Haemophilia Society, which was presented to the Department of Health at last week’s meeting. I hope officials will consider that carefully.

Any need for additional funding could easily be met from two identifiable sources. I think the £230 million from the sale of our 80% stake in Plasma Resources UK should be made available, as should any reserves left in the accounts of the three discretionary charities when they are closed in 2017. Further, I ask the Minister to promise that any money that is not spent on beneficiaries in each year will be rolled over to support beneficiaries in the next year. At last week’s meeting at the Department of Health, it appeared from what officials told us that any unspent money would have to be given back to the Treasury. That would be a gross act of betrayal towards those affected.

In conclusion, unless the Department of Health accepts that its new scheme still has substantial issues that need to be addressed, the new support scheme will not command the full confidence of the people it needs to satisfy. Indeed, in some crucial respects it will be worse than the system it replaces.

The APPG still believes that people should have the option of a lump sum payment as part of any new scheme, to give them the opportunity to decide for themselves what is best for them—either a regular payment or a one-off lump sum payment.

[Andy Slaughter]

My hon. Friend is making an excellent speech. Why cannot lump sum payments be an alternative to regular payments? Why must the Government be grudging on these matters? This and previous Governments owe these people a huge debt of obligation. This should be a properly funded scheme and we should have a proper investigation to get to the truth of this terrible scandal, which is a stain on our country.

[Diana Johnson]

My hon. Friend puts the point very well. The APPG and the right hon. Member for North East Bedfordshire (Alistair Burt) have spoken to people about what they want from the revised scheme, and they have said they want the option of a lump sum payment, if that would be better for them than regular payments. It is important that we give people the ability to make those decisions for themselves.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Hammersmith (Andy Slaughter) just alluded to, the APPG still believes that we need a Hillsborough-style panel inquiry to allow people to tell their stories and to say what happened to them and how it affected them.

Contaminated Blood

Debate between Diana Johnson and Andy Slaughter

Thursday 15th January 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

In preparing for this debate, I looked at the debate that my hon. Friend the Member for Coventry North West (Mr Robinson) sponsored at the beginning of this Parliament—in October 2010. I noticed that I, like a number of Members, said that action was needed more than contemplation. Since then, we have had many further debates. Indeed, we had a debate last week on hepatitis C in Westminster Hall, to which the Minister responded. We have had other such debates, the ongoing Penrose inquiry in Scotland, attempts to reform the existing arrangements and the very good report yesterday from the all-party group.

Tributes have been paid to the right hon. Member for North East Bedfordshire (Alistair Burt) for his sterling efforts to work towards a final solution. I note also that there is further legal action. Today, a letter for action has gone to the Department of Health from three sufferers of hepatitis C through contaminated blood about the inequity of their treatment compared with those suffering from HIV. The issue is not that nothing has been going on, but how much further on we are after four and a half years. I think the answer is not that much. It is easy to say that that is no one’s fault or everybody’s fault, but we must take some responsibility here. It is the role of this House to hold the Government to account when they are not living up to their moral obligation, which they are not at present.

Let me say one quick word about the existing arrangements. The report is good. It produces a lot of evidence for why the current schemes are not working, and we have heard individual criticisms of Macfarlane, Caxton and Skipton. Having read the report, my conclusion is that none of the trusts and funds is fit for purpose. If they are to continue while we await a final settlement, we must have root and branch reform and the funds must be resolved into one effective body. The politics is wrong. The funds purport to be independent bodies, but they appear to be too close to the Department of Health, meaning they have neither the benefits of independence nor the clout of accountability that should lie with the Department of Health. At the same time, they have become part of this degrading process where sufferers, who are largely reliant on benefits, are effectively begging for resources and often living in a state of penury.

That is only one part of the ongoing situation, which includes Penrose. The same situation has happened in the past, where we have been waiting on a report for consideration. Both the final conclusion on a financial settlement and the clear identification of culpability and responsibility are awaiting an outcome. I am grateful to my constituent, Andrew March, for giving me a very thorough briefing for this debate. Off the top of his head, he set down 14 reasons why unfairness has been caused to sufferers. They include the failure to act by successive Governments, which meant that products were not banned early enough and contaminated products were not withdrawn; that haemophiliacs were tested for both HIV and hepatitis C without their consent and not informed of the result; that haemophiliac children were subjected to hepatitis in infectivity trials; that minors were informed of their status without their parents being told; and that individuals were told of their status either by letter through the post or in public places. I could go on. Those are disgraceful actions. We need closure and an inquiry that will bring those matters to light.

I understand that we are to be told later today that the Penrose inquiry will report on 25 March. That is just before the purdah period and, as the right hon. Member for North East Bedfordshire said, leaves very little time for any conclusions based on those findings to be released before the election. That is deeply to be regretted, because whoever is in government after May will have many pressures on their time. I hope that this issue, if it is still not resolved by then, will not be lost. I would like to hear from both Front-Bench teams today that it will be a priority, whoever is in government, not to let the work that is done, if it is not resolved by then, fall foul of where we are.

[Diana Johnson]

My hon. Friend makes a good point about the difficulty produced by Penrose’s not reporting much earlier. The APPG was hoping that when we produced our report the Penrose report would be available, and that we could then have the conclusion to the negotiations in Downing street. The delay from Penrose has been very frustrating.

[Mr Slaughter]

It has been. It is, I think, tragic that we may go into another Parliament without a solution to these issues. If I had to say one thing, it would be this. Yes, we do need a public inquiry. We do need to identify responsibility and culpability. We do need to have the fullest apology based on the clearest evidence of what has gone wrong. We do need to make sure that interim and existing arrangements work properly, and we do need transparency. But, above all, I think we need compensation, and that cannot be delayed, perhaps for years, while all those processes are worked through.

I will, if I may, read a short statement from Andrew March, who will be familiar to many campaigners on this issue. He was the applicant in the judicial review case. He has studiously and devotedly pursued these matters for many years. He says:

“I am one of only 300 HIV positive haemophiliacs who remain alive and was infected at only nine years of age. Of those originally infected in the 1980s, more than three-quarters have died during the course of the past 3 decades. Many of them were my friends. I was also infected with Hepatitis B and C, and despite treatment, I continue to live with the adverse effects of cirrhosis of the liver. I am also one of the 3,872 haemophiliacs…who have been notified as being considered ‘At-Risk’ of variant CJD…Despite the authorities always maintaining that the risk was merely ‘theoretical’, I was shocked to learn in February 2009, that an elderly haemophiliac had been found with vCJD…in his body during post mortem…This news was not entirely unexpected, but I still became very worried that vCJD had the capability to become yet another ravaging illness.

More recently, I was informed by my doctors that I had been exposed to yet another pathogen, this time, Hepatitis E…As I sigh in disbelief that there seems to be no end to the multiple infections, I try to keep looking forward with some degree of hope that this will, one day, be sorted out once and for all.”

Those are the words of an extremely brave and resolute man. He and all the other sufferers deserve respect—which they are not getting from the current financing arrangements—they deserve justice and they deserve a full and proper compensation package. That should include compensation for family members. It should deal with all conditions, and it should remove the stigma of means-testing, ATOS assessments and so on. That is the least that we, as a country, can do for people who have suffered as a consequence of the state’s action.