Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment her Department has made of the effectiveness of Violence Reduction Units in reducing youth violence.

Crime prevention is key to the government’s Safer Streets mission and ambition to halve knife crime. Violence Reduction Units (VRUs) play an important role by uniting local partners to collectively identify and address the underlying drivers of serious violence within their communities.

This financial year (2025/26), we have allocated £47m to a network of 20 VRUs, in the areas experiencing the most severe challenges, to support their valuable work. In addition, we have provided further funding to enable the roll out of Young Futures Panels in the first year of their establishment.

The most recently published independent evaluation demonstrates that VRUs, in combination with additional hotspot police patrols, are reducing hospital admissions, with a clear impact on their target cohort of young people under 25. There were statistically significant reductions in hospital admissions for violence amongst this age group. In addition, VRUs continue to demonstrate progress and show signs of maturing and becoming embedded in local responses to prevent violence.

Allocations decisions on Violence Reduction Units and the wider policing system will be finalised early this year.