Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether people who purchase knives for work-related purposes will be made exempt from the proposed ban on online knife sales.

On 14 October we launched a public consultation on new legislation on offensive and dangerous weapons. This includes the proposal that where a knife is sold online it is an offence to deliver the knife to a private residential address. This is intended to apply to online sales of knives so we can prevent knives being sold to under 18s online. However, the proposal will not prevent knives being sold online and instead being collected from a place where the age and identity of the purchaser can be checked or from being delivered to a non-residential address such as a business. We recognise that knives are essential in everyday life at home and at work and this proposal does not change that.