Oral Answers to Questions

Sam Tarry Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd February 2022 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend makes a very important point about the immunosuppressed and the need to identify them correctly. We currently think that there are 1.3 million. Yes, of course they will have access not only to testing but to vaccines and boosters, as well as priority access for new therapeutics and antivirals.

[Sam Tarry (Ilford South) (Lab)]

13. Last October, a promising young footballer in my constituency called Kamran Khalid, a former winner of Chelsea FC’s Asian Star scheme who had played for the famous Senrab FC in Wanstead, was on his way home to see his mum after finishing at the gym, and he was stabbed 24 times—murdered just yards from his front door. One of the alleged perpetrators was as young as 15. I hope that the Prime Minister would agree with me that far more needs to be done to stamp out the scourge of knife crime, including addressing the underlying causes. Will he agree to meet me and Kamran’s mother Samina, who has said that losing her 18-year-old son has “left a void in her heart forever”,to discuss what more can be done to make our streets safer and ensure that other families do not ever have to suffer this heartbreaking loss?

[The Prime Minister]

I totally share the hon. Gentleman’s feelings about his constituents and the tragic loss in the family concerned. We must crack down more on knife crime. That is one of the reasons we are putting more police out on the streets. It is also why we are rounding up the county lines drugs gangs, who play a big part in this, sadly. We have done 2,000 so far and there is more to do. That is why we are recruiting many more police and giving them the powers they need to come down hard on those gangs.