Oral Answers to Questions Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateGavin Newlands
Main Page: Gavin Newlands (Scottish National Party - Paisley and Renfrewshire North)Department Debates - View all Gavin Newlands's debates with the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport
(6 years, 8 months ago)
Commons ChamberI will try to respond with similar brevity. My hon. Friend is absolutely right to talk about prevention, and we are consulting on further restrictions on the online sale of knives to under-18s, and on tightening up the law on the possession of knives in educational institutions other than schools.
I wish a happy Christmas and a good new year to you and your family, Mr Speaker, and to Members and staff across the House.
Knife crime is still a big problem in Scotland, but of the 35 children and teenagers killed as a result of knife crime in the UK so far this year, none was in Scotland. Does the Solicitor General agree that in his and his Cabinet colleagues’ efforts to reduce knife crime, they would do well to look at the work of Police Scotland’s violence reduction unit, which has helped to oversee a 69% decline in the incidence of handling an offensive weapon in a decade?
We have a long history in the England and Wales jurisdiction of learning lessons from our friends in Scotland, and I would be interested to explore those particular factors further with the hon. Gentleman. I am sure that we can enter into correspondence on that.