Criminal Justice Act 1988 (Offensive Weapons) (Amendment, Surrender and Compensation) Order 2024

Lord Lucas Excerpts

Thursday 18th April 2024 Grand Committee

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Home Office (Lord Sharpe of Epsom) (Con)]

My Lords, the order before us adds zombie-style knives and zombie-style machetes to the list of prohibited offensive weapons, by amending the Criminal Justice Act 1988 (Offensive Weapons) Order 1988 to include them. The purpose of this draft order is to maintain public safety by restricting the supply of weapons which can be used in violent crime or to create fear in our communities. The Government keep legislation in relation to prohibited offensive weapons under review and we will act when the police raise concerns about specific weapons. For example, zombie knives were banned in England and Wales in 2016, followed by cyclone knives in 2019.

We are now concerned about the availability of certain types of machetes and large outdoors knives, which do not seem to have a practical use and instead appear designed to look menacing. The police tell us that these bladed articles, which can be purchased for as little as £10, are favoured by those who want to use them as weapons to perpetrate violent crime. While sales of these weapons are relatively low, they have a disproportionate effect because their appearance creates a fear of and glamorises violence.

We are aware that machetes and other large, bladed tools such as scythes, billhooks and large outdoor knives have traditionally been used as tools in farming, gardening, clearing land and waterways, as well as in outdoor activities such as bushcraft, hunting and camping. However, unlike more conventional knives and machetes, zombie-style knives and machetes have no legitimate purpose. In our conversations with manufacturers and retailers, they have been clear that, in their view, these articles are not designed as tools but as weapons. If these dangerous weapons remain available, there is a risk that they could be used to intimidate or cause fear. Worse, they could be used to perpetrate serious acts of violence. The Government will not tolerate such a risk.

This brings me to the details of the order before us. Under Section 141 of the Criminal Justice Act 1988, it is an offence to possess, import, manufacture, sell, hire, offer for sale or hire, expose or possess for the purposes of sale or hire, a weapon specified in an order made under that section. An offence under Section 141 of the Criminal Justice Act 1988 currently carries a maximum penalty of six months’ imprisonment, but we have introduced provisions in the Criminal Justice Bill to increase the maximum penalty to two years.

A number of descriptions of weapons have been specified under Section 141 and therefore prohibited, including butterfly knives, knuckledusters, telescopic truncheons and certain types of swords with curved blades, commonly known as samurai swords. Using the order-making powers in Section 141(2) of the Criminal Justice Act 1988, the Government wish to add zombie-style knives and zombie-style machetes to the list of offensive weapons to which Section 141 applies. These weapons are defined as a bladed article with a plain cutting edge, a sharp pointed edge, and a blade over eight inches in length. This length was chosen to exclude knives designed for legitimate purposes, such as many kitchen and outdoors knives. To be within the scope of the ban, the article should also have one or more of the features specified in Article 1(1)(a), namely, a serrated cutting edge, more than one hole in the blade, spikes, or more than two sharp points in the blade.

It is right that we take the firmest possible action to prevent violence and to stop dangerous weapons getting into the wrong hands, and we are not seeking to criminalise law-abiding citizens. There will therefore be defences to cover a range of circumstances, including where the article in question is one of historical importance, is made by hand, is possessed, sold or imported for religious purposes, or was given as a gift by a Sikh to another person at a religious ceremony or ceremonial event. Antiques are already exempted from Section 141 of the Criminal Justice Act 1988. Furthermore, we are providing a defence for blunt items to protect the fantasy knives market. We have also taken the opportunity to extend this defence to curved swords.

There are a couple of further points to mention before I finish. First, Parts 3 and 4 of this instrument are concerned with the surrender and compensation scheme, through which owners with weapons in scope of the ban will be able to surrender them and claim compensation if they so wish. Secondly, in terms of territorial scope, the statutory instrument will only apply to England and Wales. We very much hope that the devolved Administrations in Northern Ireland and Scotland will take similar action to ensure that these dangerous knives are prohibited across the United Kingdom. To this effect, officials have engaged with the Governments in both Northern Ireland and Scotland.

In summary, nothing matters more than public safety. That is why we are bringing forward this order, to prevent dangerous weapons being used in violent crime or to create fear in our communities. I beg to move.

[Lord Lucas (Con)]

My Lords, I say thank you to the Minister and his Home Office team, which drafted this order, for including a clear and comprehensive exemption for objects of historical importance. Carving out a space for history is not the easiest thing to do when you are dealing with people being killed and seriously hurt but it is really important, and to have done it in a way that the ordinary citizen—rather than just museums—can take advantage of is particularly appreciated.

History is real. Iconoclasm is not a virtue. We have a long history of our ancestors carrying blades into armed conflicts, not just as weapons but as tools of utility and survival. Preserving these items is important. Museums have a limited capacity, so the role of preservation falls mostly on the amateur collector and the descendants of our brave veterans. I am delighted that the Government recognise that.

Historical knives do not play a significant role in crime—they are far too expensive for that—so excluding them from the order does not in any way decrease the protection that it offers. By way of illustration, it was not so long ago that a curved sword was sold for £400,000, possibly because it belonged to Lord Nelson. Generally, these articles fetch a decent price—far more than it costs to purchase a replica on the net or elsewhere.

Ministers have not always been so perspicacious. The historical importance exemption is not available for items prohibited by Section 141 of the Criminal Justice Act 1988, so there are items from World War II—obviously, they are not 100 hundred years old yet—issued to, for instance, the commandos and their SOE, as well as to their equivalents in other nations, that are not protected. I very much hope that the Minister and his team will make a note on the file that this is something they might set right when next an opportunity occurs. We ought to preserve these objects for just the reasons that have motivated the exemption in this order.

I also believe that there is scope for clarifying the law on truncheons. As it is at the moment, I am not at all clear that the police practice of presenting long-serving officers with engraved, old-style truncheons is legal; it would be nice to know that it is. There is also some scope for looking through the guidance that the police use when applying these rather convoluted regulations on prohibited items, so that they really understand how the various descriptions and exemptions work and so that things are made clear and easy for them.

I look forward to further conversations on these matters, both directly and as a result of the Home Office’s most helpful interactions with both Bill Harriman of the British Association for Shooting and Conservation and John Pidgeon of the Coleshill Auxiliary Research Team.

[Baroness Doocey (LD)]

My Lords, in 2021-22, 282 people lost their lives to knife crime—the highest number of people killed with a knife in over 70 years. The biggest increase was among boys aged between 16 and 17, going from 10 in the previous year to 24. Approximately four in 10 of all homicides were committed using a knife or a sharp instrument—the highest annual total since the homicide index began in 1946. There were 69 homicides where the victim was a teenager; in around three-quarters of those, the method of killing was a knife or sharp instrument, compared with 41% of all homicides.

Campaigners have been calling for a ban on zombie knives for several years, but progress on achieving one has been slow and several high-profile incidents have occurred since it was promised. These include the tragic killing of 15 year-old Elianne Andam, who was stabbed on her way to school in Croydon in September with what was believed to be a large zombie knife.

Meanwhile, this is the Government’s third attempt at banning zombie weapons since 2016. Bizarrely, the Offensive Weapons Act 2019 banned zombie knives only if they had threatening words on the blade. This proved a major loophole. Can the Minister explain why this loophole was not addressed sooner? Where was the sense of urgency then and where is it now? This ban will not come into effect until September, by which time, tragically, more lives may have been lost.

The Policing Minister, Chris Philp, told BBC Radio 4’s “Today” programme that although some swords will come under the new rules, some will not qualify owing to the difficulty of differentiating between those that could be used for violence and those kept for historical or religious reasons. He said that

“a regular sword, like the sort a historic soldier might carry, would probably not qualify. It would depend on the design”.

Is this still the case? If so, why could these swords not be included, given the availability of the historical importance defence? In any case, is not a sword, historical or not, capable of being used in violence?

Reducing the circulation of these weapons is not just about bans and sentences, important though both are. It is about cracking down hard on the sale of knives and swords of all kinds. Campaigners rightly want tech companies to introduce safety measures to stop knives being advertised online, so can the Minister update us on the progress of the relevant measures included in the Online Safety Act? How many prosecutions have there been in this area so far and how has this been policed?

I also want to speak about youth services, which have been cut by 77% over the last decade, despite the fact there is overwhelming evidence to show that youth centre closures are closely linked to youth crime. In 2020, the APPG on knife crime focused on the impact of youth centre closures across the country and found that each reduction in the number of youth centres corresponded to an increase in knife crime. This trend is confirmed by recent work from the University of Warwick, which reviewed London youth centre provision and found that crime participation among 10 to 15 year-olds increased by 10% in those London boroughs affected most by youth centre closures between 2010 and 2019.

Increasing jail time and banning zombie knives are welcome to increase deterrence and give police more tools, but they do not address the reasons why children and young people are carrying knives in the first place. As the representative of a Bristol school that had lost two of its teenage pupils due to knife crime said:

“Halving knife crime will not be achieved by banning machetes or … zombie knives. You can kill someone with a knitting needle or a screwdriver. You’ve got to deal with the anger, the fire, the rage, the angst, the trauma inside the person”.


That goes to the heart of this, and I hope that the Minister, as well as answering my specific questions, will also address himself to that challenge, because this is about tackling not just knife crime but the causes of knife crime. The British public and so many grieving families are looking to the Government to do both.