Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Stephen Morgan and Afzal Khan

Monday 4th November 2024 Commons Chamber

[Afzal Khan (Manchester Rusholme) (Lab)]

2. What steps she is taking to provide preventive education for schoolchildren about knife crime.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Stephen Morgan)]

What schools teach can play an important part, alongside wider activity, in the Government’s safer streets mission and tackling knife crime. Relationships, sex and health education includes content on situations that lead to young people carrying knives, including criminal exploitation, county lines operations and grooming relationships. We are reviewing the content to ensure that it remains relevant and protects children’s wellbeing.

[Afzal Khan]

Greater Manchester continues to experience some of the highest rates of knife violence in the country, with more than 10,000 recorded incidents since 2020. Organisations such as the Greater Manchester violence reduction unit have been doing excellent work in early prevention by engaging children and young people through community-led projects, including theatre productions. Given the importance of early community-based intervention, does the Minister agree that providing support for such initiatives is important in tackling knife violence?

[Stephen Morgan]

I thank my hon. Friend for raising such an important topic and highlighting the good work of the Greater Manchester violence reduction unit. As well as the work on the RSHE curriculum, the Government will create a new young futures programme, intervening early to stop young people being drawn into crime through preventive action and learning from best practice across the country. It is vital that we have a system that can identify and support those young people who need it most, be they victims or potential perpetrators.