Offensive Weapons Bill

Jim Cunningham Excerpts

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

[Victoria Atkins]

This group of new clauses and amendments deals with matters on which I know there is a great deal of agreement across the House. I will speak to Government new clauses 16 and 17 and Government amendment 25, and in response to new clauses 7, 10 to 13, 22 and 15 and amendment 11, tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Philip Davies).

Let me start by saying how grateful I am to my hon. Friend for his new clauses and amendment. I know that he has raised this issue in the past, and, of course, he spoke very eloquently about it during our Second Reading debate on 27 June. There are offences available for the prosecution of a person who threatens someone with an offensive weapon in private, but those offences do not describe the criminality sufficiently, and do not attract the same penalties as those that are possible when the offence is committed in public. I have therefore been convinced by my hon. Friend that there is a gap in the law that should be filled.

Under new clause 16, it would be an offence for a person unlawfully and intentionally to threaten another person with a corrosive substance, a bladed or pointed article, or an offensive weapon in a way that poses an immediate risk of serious physical harm to that person. The offence will apply in any private place, which means anywhere other than a public place or school, or further education premises, where it is already an offence. In respect of a corrosive substance, a private place means anywhere other than a public place. The lawyers have been terribly exercised about that.

[Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)]

As the Minister probably knows, there was a nasty incident in Coventry a couple of days ago when a young man lost his life as a result of people carrying knives. How does she propose to strengthen the Bill? We have been here before—we have had amnesties and all sorts—but we never seem any nearer to tackling the problem. Has the Minister any proposals in that regard?

[Victoria Atkins]

Let me say first that I am terribly sorry to hear of the incident in the hon. Gentleman’s constituency, but I cannot comment on the specifics. The Bill is but one part of the Government’s serious violence strategy, which has been a rolling programme of action since April. The purpose of these measures, particularly in relation to knives, is to address the concern expressed to us by charities, the police and others about the ability of young people to get hold of knives.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Jim Cunningham]

The Minister has been very generous in giving way. May I identify myself with my colleagues in support of the amendment? Like them, I have been approached by the Sikh Federation, and when I referred earlier to the knives issue, I was not referring to the federation and its members’ religious practices; I was talking about crime and so on.