Crime and Policing Bill

Viscount Hailsham Excerpts

Wednesday 19th November 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hampton (CB)]

My Lords, my Amendment 123 says:

“Within six months of the day on which this Act is passed, the Secretary of State must launch a consultation”—


as a teacher, marking my own homework, I realise that the drafting is then wrong and it should say “on a ban on sharp-tipped knives”. In this, I associate myself with the words of the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones. I am a teacher, and two years ago my school lost a student to knife crime. With respect to my noble friend Lord Russell of Liverpool, who is not in his place but who at Second Reading warned that there must not be too much law, I will use the analogy that amendments are like cars: everybody agrees that there are too many but nobody wants to give up their own. According to the ONS, last year 46% of homicides in the UK were with a sharp instrument, and 50% of those were with a kitchen knife. It was 52% the year before. Combat knives account for 6% and zombie knives 2%. Are we looking in the wrong direction here? Should we be looking within the home?

I am very grateful to Graham Farrell, professor of crime science at the University of Leeds, the Youth Endowment Fund and the Ben Kinsella Trust for their help. If anybody has not watched Idris Elba’s brilliantly thought-provoking film “Our Knife Crime Crisis”, I heartily recommend it. It is still available on BBC iPlayer.

Pointed-tipped knives are significantly more lethal than round-tipped knives, as shown by forensic studies on penetrative damage. A rounded knife will not penetrate clothing, let alone kill. Domestic settings are high-risk environments—especially for women—in which kitchen knives are readily available and often used in fatal attacks. Blade magazine disagrees. It says:

“The harsh truth is this: no amount of blunted blades, banned kitchen knives, or bureaucratic licensing schemes will stop individuals hell-bent on violence. You can’t legislate evil out of existence by targeting inanimate objects. England doesn’t have a knife problem—it has a people problem. A system problem. A failure-to-act-when-it-matters problem”.


But it is not the situation in which a perpetrator has planned their attack and carefully obtained or adapted a weapon to kill that this would prevent. It is the impulse homicide, particularly within a home environment, that we are trying to reduce here.

Situational crime prevention theory supports reducing crime opportunities by altering environments and tools, such as replacing lethal knives with safer ones. Rounded-tipped knives reduce temptation and harm, making impulsive violence less deadly without affecting culinary function. Small paring knives that do not penetrate far enough could be used in kitchens where a sharp point is really needed. Evidence also shows that crime rarely displaces to other weapons when access to one is restricted. Alternative weapons, such as scissors or screwdrivers, are less effective and less available and carry a lower status, thereby reducing their appeal. Dining knives are already rounded, showing a public tolerance for safer designs in everyday life. There are also policy parallels, with phase-outs such as incandescent light bulbs, diesel cars and the smoking ban.

The expected outcomes from this include a halving of knife-related homicides, reducing other knife crimes and preventing thousands of injuries. Can we please just have a consultation on this?

[Viscount Hailsham (Con)]

My Lords, I rise briefly to make observations about Amendments 122 and 123. I am not against a review or a consultation, but I make the point that these are not cost-free. Reviews and consultations take up a lot of time within departments and are expensive, and we need to keep that in mind when this House authorises them.

My point is very narrow and applies to both the review and the consultation. It is perfectly true that the sharp-bladed knife is a matter of very great concern to the public, and rightly so. It is important to keep in mind, however, that sharp-bladed knives also have legitimate purposes. My point is that when we authorise the review or consultation, we need to be sure that the scope of the review or consultation is sufficiently wide to address the balance between banning, or further banning, sharp-bladed knives and the impact on those who use them for proper purposes. In other words, the scope of the review or consultation must consider the issue of proportionality when we come to any further proposed changes. That is the only point that I want to make, but it goes to both the review and the consultation.

[Lord Blencathra (Con)]

My Lords, once again, I find myself in the rather scary position of seeing some considerable merit in the suggestion of a Lib Dem Peer, the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones. I will also comment on the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Hampton, who also advocated for controls on knives.

There is merit in having a review, or otherwise, of the measures in the Bill. However, I would go further and say that we probably need a wide-ranging review of all the measures successive Governments have taken to try to crack down on knife crime as, despite all our efforts, we cannot manage to do it. I was the Home Office Minister who took through the Offensive Weapons Act 1996, followed up the next year by the Knives Act 1997. That was building on Section 139 of the Criminal Justice Act 1998.

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This means that the courier has to spend longer there and, consequently, the couriers involved are not wanting to carry this type of weapon. Probably as important is that they do not want to carry pointed items. We are now down to only two courier companies being prepared to do this. While I am not suggesting this is an item for legislation, it might be something we collectively need to consider. If the industry that produces cookery knives cannot easily have those items delivered, that would have a significant effect, and it clearly is an unintended consequence of well-motivated legislation. I beg to move.

[Viscount Hailsham (Con)]

My Lords, I will just say a word about Amendment 213. I shall come back more fully to a discussion of the principles in the fifth group of amendments, but there is a danger that a range of agricultural and gardening tools will be caught. I have in mind, for example, machetes, bill-hooks and hand scythes—all of which will be found in various parts of my house. I think it is a very good thing that we should make the exemption clear.

[Viscount Goschen (Con)]

My Lords, I agree with the points made and the amendments tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Hogan-Howe, supported by my noble friend Lord Hailsham. We are in the territory of unintended consequences. The Committee needs to take a pragmatic approach. Where there are lacunae and mishaps in complex swathes of legislation, with many successive Acts on knives and similar offensive weapons, we need to take the opportunity to correct those. I certainly support the derogation for agricultural, gardening or conservation purposes, and for weapons of historical importance, collectables and so forth. These seem to be very pragmatic measures, which I support.

I am not knowledgeable on the subject of truncheons. The noble Lord, Lord Hogan-Howe, even with his experience did not use his. I remember the noble Lord, Lord Mackenzie of Framwellgate, at Second Reading saying that he made “liberal use” of it in an arrest with the result of blood “being spattered” onto his uniform. I guess experience varies, but I support the noble Lord’s efforts today.

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[Lord Brady of Altrincham (Con)]

My Lords, I rise briefly to move my Amendment 214A. I declare an interest as honorary president of the British Shooting Sports Council. Amendment 214A would amend the Firearms Act 1968 to reduce the administrative burden on the police, and it would do so with no risk whatever to public safety. It would remove the current requirement to apply to the police for a specific variation on a firearms certificate in order to purchase a sound moderator, a muzzle brake or a flash hider.

I hope to be brief because I believe this amendment to be so utterly uncontroversial. Indeed, I stand here seeking to be of assistance to Ministers because, in June, this Government published Firearms Licensing: Proposal to Remove Sound Moderators from Firearms Licensing Controls—Government Response, in which they recommended exactly the course of action set out in Amendment 214A. They have since indicated their intention to implement the recommendation as soon as parliamentary time allows.

This amendment is in scope for this Bill, it would help to reduce the burden of bureaucracy on police forces, and the Government want to do it. So I hope that the Minister, when he comes to respond, will commit to incorporating this measure at a later point in our deliberations on this Bill. It is clearly a benefit in reducing the drain on police resources. It is a benefit to those who engage in shooting sports and to the industry. As the Government themselves have accepted, it poses no threat whatever to public safety, simply removing what, in the instance of a sound moderator, is essentially an inert tube from a requirement to be licensed as though it were a firearm. I beg to move.

[Viscount Hailsham (Con)]

My Lords, I will briefly support my noble friend Lord Brady’s amendment for exactly the three or four reasons he articulated. First, it is consistent with the Government’s response in June this year. Secondly, silencers themselves do not constitute a public risk. Thirdly, we are advised that this is a Bill that could permit the amendment. Fourthly, the licensing requirement imposes administrative burdens that we could do well without. These are all very good reasons for accepting the amendment. I declare an interest: I possess a silencer.

[Baroness Hoey (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I too will be brief. I was pleased to add my name to the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Brady. It is a common-sense amendment that is very much in line with the Bill in reducing police bureaucracy without doing anything to harm public safety. The Government have already consulted on this. They have made their views clear—I am pleased to be on their side on an issue—and I hope that the Bill gives the opportunity not to stall any longer or to wait for more parliamentary time, but to go ahead. If we can get this through in a short time, it shows that, overall, there is broad support for this measure. I hope that the Government will accept it and move on.

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I am almost finished, noble Lords will be delighted to hear. I conclude by acknowledging that these weapons are already covered as offensive weapons in current legislation. However, machete attacks are rising out of control. We must stop them to prevent dozens more young men from being murdered and hundreds injured. It will no longer work to just use the current laws on knives; we need to single out these weapons as especially dangerous and take exceptional punitive action to stop them, stop the attacks and stop all our youths being murdered.

[Viscount Hailsham (Con)]

My Lords, my noble friend was gracious enough to make a reference to me, in the sense that he suggested that I have some concerns about his drafting. Indeed, I do. I shall take the liberty of expressing them, and I shall also deal with the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Hacking, about his dirk, which I will come to in a moment.

Machetes are my particular concern, but so, too, are cleavers, defined in this amendment. We need to understand that both have legitimate purposes. The fact is clearly recognised in the exemptions contained in proposed new subsection (6) in Amendment 214E, where the fact that they have legitimate purposes is fully recognised.

I have a number of machetes. I have used them all my life and I still do. They are essential for clearing brambles and thorns when you cannot get at them with a strimmer or another mechanical instrument. I have not actually got a cleaver, but I know that people interested in cooking—not me—use them. Butchers certainly use them, as do gamekeepers and gillies when preparing carcasses from animals shot on the estate. Let us face it: these things have legitimate use. It is in that context that we must come to the detail with which we have been provided.

Proposed new subsection (1) in Amendment 214D states that any person marketing or selling, et cetera, any of these instruments is committing an offence. That means that any hardware store in my former constituency which happened to be selling a machete would be committing an absolute offence. That is a very bizarre proposition. It means that any decent catering shop that sells cleavers is committing an absolute offence.

In proposed new subsection (2) these are absolute offences—no mens rea whatever. Then in proposed new subsection (3), anybody guilty of any of those offences faces imprisonment for up to 10 years. Proposed new subsection (4), the most bizarre of all, states that the police or the National Crime Agency can come into a private house to see whether there are any machetes or cleavers in it. That is all very bizarre stuff.

We then come to an even more interesting set of propositions in Amendment 214E.

“Any person over the age of 18”,


that is me,

“in possession of … a machete … in a public place is guilty of an offence”.

I have brambles and thorns in the adjoining fields to which I have to get access to cut—armed with my machete—by going along the footpath, which happens to be a public way, or by crossing the street, which happens to be a public way. In doing so I would be committing an absolute offence. That, I regret to say, is absurd.

I notice in proposed new subsection (3) that the police can come into my house to find these offensive weapons which I have had all my life. That is absurd. Proposed new subsection (4) states:

“It is assumed that the possession or carrying of”,


these things,

“is for the purposes of unlawful violence”.

When I am going along the footpath or crossing the street to cut down some brambles or thorns, it is to be presumed that I am intending some act of unlawful violence. Is that really sensible?

Proposed new subsection (5) on zombie knives is acceptable. However, proposed new subsection (6) deals with the “Hacking” point, if I may so call it. The noble Lord, Lord Hacking, possesses a dirk. I do not know how long the dirk is, but I can imagine that it is of a length to make it a sword. If this amendment is accepted by your Lordships, should the noble Lord, Lord Hacking, go for a stroll on Whitehall carrying his dirk, he will be committing an absolute offence, and it will be assumed that he is intending some violence to third parties. Let us assume it is a sword. What happens if he stores it at home? Is it displayed for historical purposes? I rather doubt that; I do not suppose it is hanging on the wall to be shown to the public. Is it worn by uniformed personnel, as part of their uniform? Well, I am looking forward to seeing the noble Lord in his uniform, but I fancy that the answer to that is also no.

The truth is in a point made by the noble Lord, Lord Hogan-Howe, in an earlier debate. If you go to any country house like mine, my friends’ or my neighbours’, they are stuffed full of these things, like swords from previous campaigns, that their great-great-grandfather carried at Waterloo, or that their great-grandfather carried at the Boer war, or whatever. These are not displayed for historical purposes; they are family possessions, and it is an absurdity to say that the police can come into my house and take these things. Oh no, no, no—this will not do at all.

The truth is that if somebody wishes to walk down Whitehall waving a machete, I am not surprised that the police get upset, but if they come to Lincolnshire—Kettlethorpe in particular—and find me crossing the street to cut down brambles and thorns with a machete I have owned for 50 years, I shall be passing annoyed. My noble friend’s purpose may be splendid, but his drafting is defective.

[Lord Garnier (Con)]

My Lords, there have been two things which were splendid. First of all were the intentions behind the proposals of my noble friend Lord Blencathra, and secondly, the content and tone of the speech of my noble friend Lord Hailsham. It seems to me that my noble friend Lord Blencathra is essentially saying that there needs to be greater attention paid by the public authorities—I include legislators as a public authority for this purpose—to the increase in the incidence of machete and cleaver crime, and that we need to make sure there is less of it. Secondly, as my noble friend Lord Hailsham has said, there is some deficiency here. I think he was making what we used to call a pleading point, but let us leave it there.

[Viscount Hailsham (Con)]

It was more than a pleading point.

[Lord Garnier (Con)]

There we are. Perhaps in the spirit of compromise, I suggest that the answer to this is a sentencing question. My noble friend Lord Blencathra pointed out that, in some of the particularly nasty cases he referred to, very lengthy sentences were awarded for the people who committed these crimes with these particular weapons. As I said at Second Reading, I have a horror of legislating to create new offences which are already offences. It is already an offence to do something criminal with one of these weapons, no matter what it is called. Although I entirely understand my noble friend’s motives, the better way is to consider whether the sentencers have sufficient powers to deal very seriously with these very serious crimes. By the sound of it, they already do, but the Government may want to look to see whether the criminal courts should be given greater powers of sentencing when dealing with crimes committed with these particular weapons.

I come back to my points. I understand my noble friend Lord Blencathra’s motives; I equally understand my noble friend Lord Hailsham’s enthusiasm for the points he has made. But, essentially, we are here dealing with a matter of sensible sentencing for particularly vicious crimes. If we concentrated on that, we would not clutter up the already over-lengthy legislation with yet more provisions.

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Furthermore, new restrictions in relation to bladed articles and offensive weapons require consultation, for all the reasons that have been mentioned in the discussion today. Getting the descriptions of knives and weapons right for legislation requires consultation. I greatly enjoyed the contribution from the noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham, on his legitimate use of certain weapons that would fall under the remit of the proposals from the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra.

[Viscount Hailsham (Con)]

And the noble Lord, Lord Hacking.

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

Indeed. On reflection, I think I can tell the noble Lord, Lord Hacking, that his dirk is a dagger and therefore does not fall within the remit of the legislation proposed—I think that information was considered by my noble friend Lord Katz but it was not able to be deployed at the time. However, we can return to that at some point.