Business of the House Debate

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Department: Leader of the House

Business of the House

Vicky Foxcroft Excerpts
Thursday 17th December 2015

(8 years, 10 months ago)

Commons Chamber
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John Bercow Portrait Mr Speaker
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Order. I call Valerie Vaz. [Interruption.] The hon. Lady is not seeking to catch my eye at this time. My mistake; I apologise. She is firmly rooted in her seat.

Vicky Foxcroft Portrait Vicky Foxcroft (Lewisham, Deptford) (Lab)
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On 6 December, my constituent, Kabba Kamara, was tragically stabbed to death while on a night out with friends and family in central London. He was a valued member of the community, the father of a three-year-old boy and a carer of his elderly grandmother. He was warm, intelligent and kind. A few weeks ago, I told the House about two other constituents who had lost their lives to youth violence and I asked the Leader of the House if we could have a debate on the matter. He dodged the question and gave no answer. Today, I ask him this again. Will he honour Kabba Kamara by allowing us time to debate serious youth violence?

Lord Grayling Portrait Chris Grayling
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Let us be clear that any knife crime is tragic. As Secretary of State for Justice, I legislated in the last Parliament—together with the former Member for Enfield North, Nick de Bois—significantly to increase and extend the penalties for carrying a knife and to create a presumption of a mandatory jail sentence for anyone caught carrying a knife for a second time, for which, to my mind, there is little excuse. I will give careful consideration to what time can be made available for such a debate, but a lot of the time that is provided in the House is now in the hands of the Backbench Business Committee, and I encourage the hon. Lady also to talk to the Committee about this.