Karen Buck
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Emergency Summit on Knife Crime
Karen Buck Excerpts(5 years, 7 months ago)
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Ms Karen Buck (Westminster North) (Lab)
On the Saturday before last—in one afternoon alone—there were four stabbings in my borough, one of which arose from a fight between 20 to 30 young people, some of whom were carrying swords. When the Minister is held accountable in this House for the knife crime summit, it is because of the sense of urgency that many of us feel. Will she confirm that there will be a discussion about police capacity at the summit, not least in view of the fact that my borough has lost a third of its police since 2011 and is set to lose more? On the prevention and early intervention strategy, today’s figures also show that there has been a loss of 45% of youth club facilities in London since the 2011 riots alone.
Victoria Atkins
The hon. Lady will know that decisions about how her borough is policed lie at the feet of the Metropolitan Police Commissioner and the Mayor of London, because the Mayor of London is the police and crime commissioner for London, so I hope that she has raised this matter with him.
The hon. Lady mentioned urgency. The knife crime summit is really important, but it is not the only thing happening in Government to tackle knife crime and serious violence. The national county lines co-ordination centre has been set up, we are spending £220 million on early intervention, there are local projects for the anti-knife-crime community funds and there is the #knifefree social media campaign. If colleagues want to work with us to send the message out through their constituencies that carrying a knife is not usual, I urge them to use that hashtag to refer people following them on social media—young people, parents, those who work with young people—to the websites that can get help for people they are worried about. We can all take responsibility for such measures as leaders in our local communities to help tackle knife crime.