Knife Crime

Natasha Irons Excerpts

Tuesday 14th April 2026 Commons Chamber

[Sarah Jones]

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend for the work that she does in her constituency, and I send my condolences to Josh’s family, who will still be reeling after their loss. I agree with her that organisations such as Break Tha Cycle and Street Fathers do incredibly important work that we need to support. The target from this Government is that we should have a massive increase in our neighbourhood police officers, and we expect those officers to have a role going into schools and building relationships. We know that those relationships can be powerful. With those neighbourhood officers, we are trying to have consistency and to professionalise the neighbourhood route, so that people want to stay in it, rather than moving on up through the ranks and moving away from it. We want to have some continuity. We are also working to ensure that they are not abstracted, which is the other challenge that we have, particularly in large cities. When we have our proper cohort of neighbourhood officers, those people can be involved in their local schools, as we would expect them to be.

[Natasha Irons (Croydon East) (Lab)]

I thank the Minister for her tireless work and campaigning on this issue, both in this place and in our community of Croydon. I know that this moral mission is personal to her, but given her experience, does she agree that tackling knife crime requires a whole-system approach bringing together policing, schools, health and communities? Can she outline how this plan strengthens the partnerships at a local level in communities like ours in Croydon?

[Sarah Jones]

I thank my hon. Friend for her kind words, and I know that we tackle this issue together in Croydon. The point of this package of interventions is not just to stop kids getting involved in crime, but to make sure that we have got the right justice system and the right policing system, while stopping repeat offenders. A whole raft of interventions will directly impact on Croydon, which has a really good violence reduction unit that is working hard, and we want to support all the local organisations there. Our increase in neighbourhood policing will also significantly help. In Croydon, we also have live facial recognition, too, which is an interesting and powerful intervention in tackling crime. We are consulting at the moment on its legal basis.