Offensive Weapons Bill

Huw Merriman Excerpts

3rd reading: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Wednesday 28th November 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Djanogly]

I am not sure whether those people are primarily ex-servicemen and women, but I am sure that a lot of them shoot. A lot of children learn to shoot on the range in my constituency, which is an important part of the community that provides an important sporting outlet for disabled people, who cannot do other sports and hugely enjoy their shooting.

[Huw Merriman (Bexhill and Battle) (Con)]

I thank my hon. Friend for giving way; he is being extremely generous. I would ask him to consider this scenario, which happened in my local shooting club. Somebody who was clearly quite troubled was able to book up all the shooting lanes and then held up the shooting range official, took the guns and murdered two women a mile away from my constituency border. My hon. Friend talks about the illegal versus the legal and about the risk being minimal, but when things go wrong, even in minimal-risk circumstances, it can have devastating impacts. That is why I find myself a little hesitant about what is now being changed.

[Mr Djanogly]

My hon. Friend makes a very fair point. Firearms are potential very dangerous things to use. I can only say to him that, as I said before, the number of legally owned weapons used in crimes is very limited, although that is not to say that we do not have a gun problem in this country. We certainly do, and we need to address it.

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[David Hanson]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for reminding me of the proposals that were brought in for Northern Ireland.

New clauses 18 and 19 are reasonable. A lockable cabinet and a lockable trigger guard will ensure that children and young individuals, who do not realise the potential power of these weapons, have more difficulty accessing weapons whose legal owners may currently keep them in an unlocked cabinet and without a trigger guard. I think the Minister needs to look at this, and I hope that she will support the new clauses. If she will not do so, I hope for a good explanation why not.

[Huw Merriman]

I wish to speak to Government amendment 26 and other related amendments. I had not intended to speak, but I feel duty bound to do so. Some time back, when the proposal to ban .50 calibre weapons came to the fore, like many of my Conservative colleagues, I wrote to the Minister to ask for the evidence base for it. The response I got back did not ultimately persuade me that there was such an evidence base. I think of myself as a libertarian, and if we are going to ban anything, there needs to be a justification for doing so. I was very much part of raising that query and concern.

I absolutely supported the amendment tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for The Cotswolds (Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown), which would have tightened up some of the rules around gun clubs with regard to these weapons. I am speaking in order to do almost an about-turn—I touched on this in my intervention during my hon. Friend’s speech—and this has really come to light for me. The issue is not so much about the .50 calibre weapons. I take the point, and it is well made, that one would not be able to remove and use this type of weapon in such a way; they are used for a specific purpose. None the less, if we are not careful with our gun clubs and do not make sure that the rules are tight, there will be situations where there are breaches that have tragic consequences. I want to reference what I touched on in my intervention.

I will run through the exchange that happened during the court process. Mr Craig Savage, the constituent I referred to—in fact, this happened just into a neighbouring constituency—managed to book his local gun club. It is my local gun club—I have actually used it—and the same one that has written to me to try to persuade me how safe it is and what a great pursuit the sport is.

[Mark Garnier (Wyre Forest) (Con)]

I refer the House to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. Does my hon. Friend not agree—I am aware of the point he is about to make—that gun clubs provide a sport that is gender-blind, ability-blind and age-blind, and that target rifle shooting is one of the most egalitarian sports available?

[Huw Merriman]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Gun clubs do, indeed, provide such a sport. I will suggest to the Minister where we can support them in their endeavours and actually make things better. Quite frankly—and gun clubs are aware of this as well—if they do not fulfil their role in a safe and secure manner, they know full well that it will be very hard for us, as their representative MPs, to justify their continued existence.

I want to take the House through the transcript involving the defendant and 1066 Target Sports. The defendant had asked whether he and a friend could book a live fire at 6.30 pm on the Friday. In one email, he asked whether it was busy during that time, and he later took up the offer of booking out all the lanes so that he and his friend

“could have the place to ourselves”.

I am sure colleagues are wondering why, at this point, nobody smelled a rat. The next day, he emailed to say that his friend had dropped out and he would have to “swing back another time”.

The defendant arrived at the complex at about 5 pm on the Friday of the shooting and was met in reception by Mr Graves, the deputy manager. Mr Graves said that the defendant had mentioned that he had prostate cancer and did not have much time to live. During the live firing he spoke about religion and rifles, and he made reference to “police-assisted suicide” and wanting to be “remembered as a man”. The defendant then went to the toilet. While the deputy manager was reloading, the defendant returned, wrestled the gun away, aimed it at his chest and said, “I will not hurt you, but I will need you to open the door”, which he duly did.

The defendant then made the 10-minute journey to Bexhill Road, where at 7.40 pm Raven Whitbread, her mother Heather Whitbread and her sister Michelle Savage were sitting in the lounge relaxing and eating a meal. Suddenly the defendant smashed through the window. Raven was told by her sister and mother to hide, as she was seven months pregnant. Raven said that she saw Craig Savage standing over her sister, and then she saw her body jolt. She ran into the annexe to call the police. Her mother was shot dead thereafter.

That is what happens if we do not get this right. People lose their lives in tragic situations because sometimes we too blindly see the risks as being so small that they will not occur. But when the law is broken, tragic events occur and people lose their lives. I think that we are duty bound not to say that the risks are so small that we should not control legitimate behaviour. We should ensure that those risks are minimised even further, and reduced to zero if possible.

I am asking the Minister whether we can look at gun clubs to ensure that they are made more secure, along the lines that my hon. Friend the Member for The Cotswolds talked about, and really to look at a wholescale review and reform of gun clubs. If we do—I will tell my local gun club this—I just cannot support them.

[John Woodcock]

I will keep my remarks brief, as you have requested, Madam Deputy Speaker, because we are shortly to vote. That was a brave speech by the hon. Member for Bexhill and Battle (Huw Merriman). I hope that the Minister would accept that I am prepared to support the Government when they do the right thing on national security, and that therefore it is not out of overt partisanship that I think this cave-in is truly shameful.

I feel sorry for the Minister, because I think that it is the Home Secretary, or indeed the Prime Minister, who should really be here to account for why they are now disregarding all the advice they have received from the police and intelligence officials and caving in to—I have to say it—the backwoodsmen and, occasionally, women of their own party, rather than seeking to govern in the national interest on security. There was a way here whereby a Government who either had a level of authority or were prepared to reach across the House to do the right thing on national security could have got a clear majority for this important measure.

The threat of terrorism in this country is growing. It is inadequate, and potentially morally bankrupt, simply to say that because there has not been an attack recently, since the IRA threat, then there will not be one in future.

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[Anna Turley]

My right hon. Friend makes a really important point. That is just another huge loophole in the Bill that will have an impact on British businesses, forcing them to be unable to compete. Ahead of Small Business Saturday, I really hope Ministers will take that under consideration.

In response to my question earlier, the Minister responded that the simple difference would be that people would just have to go to a post office to sign for these goods. In areas like mine, people often travel as far as six or eight miles to get to the nearest post office. That is a long way, so why would they not go to the nearest B&Q or other big store to buy all their DIY needs? We are driving out small online businesses who have struggled to get themselves up and running. They are losing out yet again to major stores, because we are making their customers’ lives more difficult.

My constituent is just one example of many small and medium-sized businesses across the country that could be inadvertently affected by the Bill. Small businesses are the lifeblood of our economy and local communities, and we will all be celebrating them this weekend. I am sure the Government did not intend for the Bill to unjustly penalise online retailers and I am sure this is just an oversight in the drafting. The proposed legislation already makes very specific exemptions on bladed items for activities such as sporting or re-enactment. It would therefore not be unreasonable to extend that flexibility to decorating items which similarly support a genuine public purpose and are used regularly by law-abiding citizens.

I would also like to speak in support of amendments 8 and 9, tabled in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield Central (Paul Blomfield), which seek to address the same problem. There will obviously be a number of other businesses—we have already heard today about the importance of Sheffield steel and Sheffield knives—affected by the poor drafting of the Bill, including in the catering and the arts and crafts industries. The amendments would create a trusted trader status entitling qualifying businesses to sell bladed products to residential premises, creating another means of protecting such legitimate businesses. As long as there was not a resulting excessive administrative burden or unnecessary delays to trading while registering, the trusted trader approach could be an effective means to ensure a satisfactory balance between necessary restrictions on the sale of blades to those who intend to use them as weapons, and ensuring legitimate businesses can continue to operate.

The Minister raised the point about overburdensome regulation in opposition to the amendments. Again, she is already asking people to send their customers to the post office, so that we try to make sure that they are not selling to those under the age of 18. We are already putting such restrictions on people. I do not think it is that burdensome to ask someone to register as a trusted trader, which is a positive thing for them to sign up to and would enhance, not jeopardise, their businesses.

I hope that the Government will look again at the amendments and recognise that there is, I am afraid, a serious flaw in the drafting of the Bill. I hope that they will work with the Opposition to amend the Bill as it continues its passage through the House, while engaging fully with the retailers and others affected. Otherwise, I am afraid that the Bill as it stands will have a disastrous effect on many of our hard-working small businesses, which are the lifeblood of economies such as mine.

[Huw Merriman]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Redcar (Anna Turley), who is a fellow Arsenal fan and one of the nicest people in this place—[Interruption.] There was no career to lose—at least for me.

I want to speak about new clauses 5 and 26. I am conscious that the hon. Member for Hampstead and Kilburn (Tulip Siddiq) has not yet spoken, so I will leave time for her to do so. Generally, I am very supportive of the Bill, and I am very concerned that the number of offences of violence against the person recorded by the police in 2017 was 21% higher than in 2016. That demonstrates the need for more to be done across the House to support the police. There was also the highest level of offences involving knives or sharp instruments since 2011, so we clearly have a problem. This should not be a party political issue; it should be for all of us as constituency MPs to work together to deliver a solution. That certainly came through to me last night, when I was due to be meeting a friend—not just a friend to me, but to many in this place—who works for Save the Children and who I went to the Syrian border with. She did not turn up to the meeting that we were due to have because she was attacked and mugged by somebody carrying a large knife. She is well known to us all, so this is going on in our communities.

Let me deal with new clause 5. I am indebted to the Minister, who is not in her place, but we spoke at length this morning. When I look through the clause, which was tabled by the shadow police Minister, the hon. Member for Sheffield, Heeley (Louise Haigh), it is very difficult to see anything in it that I would not agree with. I can see that the issue may be the impact that it could have on small businesses. However, if I wished to harm myself by going into a shop and buying a packet of cigarettes, those cigarettes would be behind a counter locked in a cabinet, often in very small premises, yet if I wished to harm somebody else, I could go into a shop and pick up a bladed article to do that. Of course, the issue is with regard to shoplifting. Although I absolutely agree with the need to support small businesses and be proportionate, I say to the Minister, through the Front Benchers who are here now, that if we find out from a review over a period of months that we still have difficulties with knives, and that the measures taken on internet restrictions and delivery to addresses have not dealt with this matter, the new clause will need to be looked at again. I therefore ask those on the Front Bench, in return for me supporting their position and the Bill overall—notwithstanding that I think the new clause is excellent—to ensure that we see the new clause again if it is absolutely demonstrated to be necessary.

When I was speaking to the Minister, I had the feeling that we were looking for other solutions, because if we compare the scenario in south London, where knife crime is prevalent, with my constituency, where it is not as prevalent, we see that a one-size-fits-all ban across every single shop may not be proportionate. However, we do have public spaces protection orders, which were brought in to allow local authorities to put orders in place to prohibit certain behaviour relevant perhaps just to that community. Such an order can be applied for if the activities are being carried out in a public space within an authority’s area and those activities have a detrimental effect on the quality of life of those in the locality and are likely to be persistent, unreasonable and justify such a restriction—so, something as crucial as knife crime should fit within that.

I understand from the Minister, who is back in her place, that the difficulty is that the definition of “public space” would not include a shop. I am sure that that has been tested legally. I was trying to find the research, and in the short time I had I could not do so, but I did notice that the US definition would actually include a shop because, in effect, it only precludes areas relevant to a private gathering or other personal purposes. I understand that a “public space” would tend to be open, but I would ask if lawyers could reconsider whether that is relevant and, if it is, whether local authorities in areas where knife crime is prevalent should be able to apply for such orders. That would have the same effect as the new clause.

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[Lyn Brown]

The hon. Gentleman rightly says that the shadow Home Secretary has recognised that the use of excessive force is an offence already. The fact that she has drawn attention to that in this place and elsewhere should not be such a big issue, surely.

[Huw Merriman]

Of course, we are all entitled to our point of view.

[Lyn Brown]

It’s the law.

[Huw Merriman]

I understand it is the law, but it also sends out a certain message, does it not? The police are looking for our support in dealing with an incredibly difficult problem. I have mentioned how it is blighting many constituencies, including those of Opposition Members. To send out a message that they should not be doing this, and thereby to focus on the police rather than the perpetrators—I made a similar point to the hon. Member for Sheffield, Heeley about new clause 5—is rather demoralising for the police.

[Lyn Brown]

rose—

[Huw Merriman]

I will not give way again because many others wish to speak.

[Louise Haigh]

Unfortunately, there is not time for me to address all the amendments in the group, but I thank my right hon. Friend the Member for East Ham (Stephen Timms), my hon. Friends the Members for Bristol South (Karin Smyth), for Sheffield Central (Paul Blomfield) and for Redcar (Anna Turley), my right hon. Friend the Member for Delyn (David Hanson) and my hon. Friend the Member for Hampstead and Kilburn (Tulip Siddiq), who have all tabled reasoned, evidence-based amendments that would significantly improve the Bill. I support them all wholeheartedly.

The hon. Member for Bexhill and Battle (Huw Merriman) was very kind in offering his support to new clause 5, which would introduce a simple prohibition on the display of bladed products in shops. The new clause is the result of a huge amount of work led by my hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham, Deptford (Vicky Foxcroft), who is chair of the cross-party Youth Violence Commission. One of her most important recommendations was the prohibition of knife displays in shops, a matter that was discussed when experts gave evidence to the Committee. The Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers said that it would be helpful to put knives behind displays in shops. A representative said:

“Obviously, now big retailers are increasingly going down the route of making it more difficult for customers to get their hands on the product until they have been age-checked and the transaction is safe. The problem with it, of course, is that all sorts of bladed things are being sold and it is about where you draw the line.”––[Official Report, Offensive Weapons Public Bill Committee, 19 July 2018; c. 98, Q239.]

Obviously we want retailers to check people’s ages properly when they seek to purchase knives, but the fact of the matter is that many young people who want to access knives will go into shops and steal them if they are readily available. Ultimately, there is little point in having the provisions in the Bill, and putting all the restrictions and burdens on online retailers, if we are not asking face-to-face retailers to abide by the same regulations.

There are a number of restrictions under the law relating to other products—most obviously, the extremely restricted provisions relating to the sale of tobacco, which prohibit the display of tobacco products except to people over the age of 18. The Tobacco Advertising and Promotion Act 2002 specifically refers to under-18s, so the principle already exists in law. New clause 5 simply transposes to knives the already sufficient and proportionate response to tobacco. As the hon. Member for Bexhill and Battle said, if we walk into a shop and buy cigarettes with which to kill ourselves, they will be behind locked cabinets. A young person, or any person, who walks into a shop and steals a knife in order to kill another person is free to do so: as things stand, the knives are not even behind locked cabinets. We see no reason why that should not be extended to bladed products. Given that the Government are so committed to clamping down on online sales, we hope they recognise that face-to-face sales are a clear issue that needs further consideration.

While we are on the topic of restricting the supply of knives, let me turn briefly to the amendments tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield Central. The clause to which they relate was debated extensively in Committee. We fully support the Government’s intention, but are worried that the clause may punish businesses while having little impact on the ultimate aim—to reduce violence.

I remain baffled as to why the Home Office has not simply put strict age verification controls on the sale of knives online, as it does, for example, with gambling, but instead has chosen to punish the online sales industry and traders such as those mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Redcar. My hon. Friend’s amendments are very reasonable compromises, put forward by the very businesses that the Minister claims have complained that they are too bureaucratic. I fear that the clause has not been thought through sufficiently, and will have untold consequences.

New clause 1 was tabled by my right hon. Friend the Member for Delyn, whom I congratulate on his incredible, impassioned speech and the fantastic campaign that he has mounted. We have made clear from the outset that we are prepared to support amendments to protect shop workers. In Committee, we heard powerful evidence from USDAW and the British Retail Consortium about the increase in the number of attacks on shop workers as a result of restricted sales, and we wholeheartedly support any measure that which will improve their protection. I congratulate USDAW on its brilliant campaign.

Let me now deal with new clause 31. The death of a pregnant woman, Sana Muhammad, just a few short weeks ago in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Ilford North (Wes Streeting) has, in his words,

“shocked people…to the core.”—[Official Report, 14 November 2018; Vol. 649, c. 310.]

She was attacked in front of her five children by a man with a crossbow, and was tragically pronounced dead a short while afterwards. That tragic case has brought to light, once again, the remarkably weak controls on crossbows, which have lethal effects. It is incumbent on us as a Parliament to decide whether we are comfortable with circumstances in which a lethal weapon is freely available to anyone over the age of 18, with no licensing restrictions at all.

There have been many tragic and disturbing incidents involving crossbows, and the law as it exists has developed only incrementally. Our new clause would create a licensing system. That is not a step that any Parliament should take lightly, but we believe that it has the potential to remove the unregulated sale and possession of some of the most lethal crossbows, while also ensuring that the law-abiding community who use crossbows for sporting purposes are still able to carry out their legitimate pursuit. The clause also creates safeguards which allow further consideration of the power under which a crossbow would become subject to licensing provisions, allowing the Secretary of State to make regulations determining the appropriate draw weight.

Our new clause 6 calls for a report on the causes behind youth violence, a topic that is not discussed much in the entire debate around offensive weapons. The new clause goes to the heart of our issues with the Bill and the Government’s seriously weak serious violence strategy. The strategy was published only in April yet we have already seen a U-turn from the Home Secretary, finally agreeing that the public health model must be adopted and that agencies need to be working better to tackle violence. We have been telling the Government all of this for at least the last year, so we are pleased to see progress, but we are alarmed that the strategy is so desperately short on detail. Members hear almost every day from constituents about the levels of crime and the cuts to policing in our constituencies.

The police service is at risk of becoming almost unrecognisable to the public and irrelevant according to the Home Affairs Committee. “Panorama” reported recently that up to half of crimes are being “screened out” by some forces, meaning they get no investigation at all. This is just the latest indication of a police service creaking under the strain of soaring demand after eight years of austerity. When crimes are not being investigated, deterrence reduces and crime rises further still. It is a vicious circle and one the present Government have locked us into with little recognition of their role in it.

Axing the police was a political choice that has done incalculable harm to our communities, and it is a choice that I suspect many Conservative MPs who voted for swingeing cuts privately regret.

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[Huw Merriman]

I shall not talk for long; the Whips are worried that I might inadvertently talk out the Bill, which of course I would never want to do because I absolutely support it.

As I did not do so earlier, I thank my hon. Friend the Minister for giving me a lot of her time and reassuring me about some measures about which I was concerned. Across party lines, some great suggestions have been made this afternoon. A lot of them came from the Opposition Benches, and I would struggle to vote against them. I hope that in a few months the Minister will assess whether the measures in the Bill as passed will fix some of the issues; if not, we should reconsider new clauses 5 and 26, and perhaps some of the other proposals, because they have a lot to recommend them. Overall, I support the Bill and hope that the House will give it a Third Reading.

Offensive Weapons Bill

Huw Merriman Excerpts

Ping Pong: House of Commons
Tuesday 26th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Victoria Atkins]

I am very grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his words and for that meeting I had with him. He is absolutely right that we wanted to listen on this. As I said at the beginning, this Bill has been, I hope, a good example of collaborative work across the House and I am extremely grateful to hon. Members for that.

[Huw Merriman (Bexhill and Battle) (Con)]

My concern about retailers has always been not with the Asdas or John Lewises, whom one would expect to do the right thing—they have a public image as well—but with the disreputable merchants. Will my hon. Friend at least keep this matter on watch, so that if it turns out that those not following the code are seen to be doing wrong, we can review the amendment that was discussed the last time we considered the Bill?

[Victoria Atkins]

Yes, and I thank my hon. Friend, who has been particularly persistent about locking away bladed products or sharp knives. We absolutely keep that point under review. We have had a good response from the retail industry thus far, but we will of course keep the pressure up, and I am extremely grateful to him for his contribution to that.

Liability under our amendments in lieu attaches only to companies that enter into arrangements to deliver bladed products. A delivery company could choose simply not to do so. Our amendments therefore provide the flexibility that the hon. Member for Sheffield South East described, so that if a seller does not enter into an arrangement with a delivery company, the provisions in the Bill that prohibit delivery to residential premises of a bladed product will still apply. A seller in those circumstances will not be able to send a bladed product to residential premises and the product will have to be collected in person at a collection point, which at least gives small and medium-sized businesses the choice over how to conduct their business. We believe that these amendments will help to address the concern behind the Bill and achieve the aim of stopping young people and those under 18 having access to these products through online sales when they should not have such access. I very much hope that our amendment will meet the approval of the House.

Let me turn to knife crime prevention orders. It is vital that the police have the powers they need to prevent knife crime and to protect the public from the devastating effects of violent crime on our streets. It is frankly already too late when we prosecute young people for knife crime. If measures are available that might help to steer children and young people away from carrying or using a knife, we should not hesitate to put them in place. That is why the Government have introduced, in short order, knife crime prevention orders in the Bill. The police made that request of us at the very end of the summer last year, and we were pleased to insert the provision into the Bill in the House of Lords. These are civil orders aimed at young people at risk of engaging in knife crime, people whom the police call habitual knife carriers of any age and those who have been convicted of a violent offence or an offence involving knives.

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[Huw Merriman]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East (Stuart C. McDonald), whose constituency I will not even try to pronounce correctly. He always speaks with such eloquence. I attended the same meeting of groups hosted by the hon. Member for Croydon Central (Sarah Jones) and listened to the arguments about knife crime prevention orders. It was hard not to be persuaded by some of those arguments, but I want to explain why I think introducing those orders is the right thing to do.

The Government are absolutely right to follow a public health approach to knife crime. It is time to look holistically at all our agencies in delivering both a health-based solution and a criminal justice solution. We have the youth endowment fund and the review of drugs policy, and we should recognise that prison sentences for knife crime have increased: 85% of people convicted serve at least three months, compared with 53% only 10 years ago. The courts are putting in place a whole range of tougher measures, and the Government and local authorities are looking to introduce wraparound support, yet the reality is that knife crime is endemic and will not be solved in the short term with those measures alone. I therefore absolutely support knife crime prevention orders.

What makes this issue so stark for me is the number of recorded knife crime offences in the 12 months to September 2018. There were 40,000—an increase of two thirds since March 2014. Those figures are appalling. In the context of overall violence having fallen by a quarter since 2013, it is clear that we have an issue specific to the carrying of knives. I was struck by a recent survey by the Centre for Social Justice, in which 6% of Londoners polled confessed to having carried a knife in the past 12 months. There is a contagion effect. Young people carry knives to protect themselves, because they do not feel confident, but we all know that someone is more likely to die when they are carrying a knife than when they are not. We must make some kind of intervention to tackle that.

The Mayor of London was absolutely right in his letter to the Home Secretary in December. He was critical because nothing had yet been inserted into the Bill. He said that he was

“concerned to note that despite requests from the police…no amendments have yet been tabled”.

Now they have, which is to be welcomed. He went on to say that the introduction of the orders would

“enable better protection for the community, particularly those working with vulnerable and high-risk young people,”

and added:

“At the same time, they will enable the police and partner agencies to intervene and prevent future crime.”

They will prevent future tragedies, too.

Last month, I heard from senior officers in the Met who have asked for knife crime prevention orders to be introduced. Again, it was hard not to be impressed by what they had to say. Absolutely, introducing the orders is a slight roll of the dice—they are new and innovative—but it is important that we do so.

[Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)]

I think the main point is that if someone is on a knife crime prevention order, people around them will realise that they are and may concentrate more on looking after them and stopping them doing something wrong again. That is very important, too.

[Huw Merriman]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right: this is about that care and intervention as well as having a deterrent. Of course there has to be a deterrent.

We must not overlook the fact that applications will have to be made by either the Crown Prosecution Service or a chief officer of police, and that the court will have to be satisfied, on the balance of probabilities, that on at least two occasions in the previous two years the defendant had a bladed article in a public place or a place of education. That is not enough, either: if there has been a big conversion, that can be demonstrated, and the magistrates court must think it is necessary to make the order to protect the public from harm from a bladed article or, indeed, to protect the respondent from committing an offence.

We talk about locks; there is a series of locks in the magistrates courts, and we must trust our magistrates to look fairly and objectively at the evidence before putting in place an order, which I say will deter young people from causing a tragedy to themselves or other people. Only if that order is breached will we be talking about a custodial sentence. Orders will be reviewed if they are longer than 12 months, and they can be varied, too. To me, they make absolute sense.

I will conclude by explaining why I feel so passionately about this issue. We can talk about long-term interventions, but the reality for young people who carry knives is that one mistake leads to loss of life—either theirs or others’. The impacts of that are dramatic. In 2007, the number of knife crime-related homicides was high—it was 272. We —both Labour and Conservative Governments—brought it down to 186 in 2015. It has now risen to 285 killings in the last year, which is the highest since records began in 1946. Something has to be done, and done now.

[Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown]

I want to back up what my hon. Friend the Member for Beckenham (Bob Stewart) just said. In addition to the safeguards my hon. Friend has ably set out, there is the provision for under-18s that, before an order can be granted, a youth offending team has to be consulted, meaning they can be helped by experts not to reoffend.

[Huw Merriman]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right; YOTs will be consulted. I do not agree with the idea of having a more specific order, because that would tie the whole process up in knots, whereas this needs to be a fluid process. YOTs would indeed be consulted, and then appropriate adults—youth workers—would supervise any requirements under the order.

These interventions can help people turn their lives around. I spent five years working in a youth organisation that was trying to turn young people’s lives around and stop them making these mistakes. We helped with their education and encouraged them to put their energy into sports, performing arts, environmental projects, and so on—something that could turn them away from a life of crime and give them something more interesting, exciting and exacting to work on. That said, we have now regressed. Far too many young people are being attracted by gangs and carrying knives either because of the glamour or as protection. We need to do something now to turn that around and save lives.