Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, when he plans to bring forward legislative proposals to ban zombie knives.

The Criminal Justice Act 1988 (Offensive Weapons) (Amendment, Surrender and Compensation) Order 2024 was laid in Parliament on 25 January 2024.

Once the legislation has been approved by Parliament, a surrender scheme will be launched this summer to remove these knives from our streets.

Once the surrender scheme has been completed, the manufacture, supply, sale and possession of zombie-style knives and machetes will be outlawed from 24 September.

Additionally, through the Criminal Justice Bill, we are providing more powers for police to seize knives held in private that they believe will be used for unlawful violence, increasing the maximum penalty for the offences of selling prohibited weapons and selling knives to under 18s and creating a new offence of possessing an article with blade or point or an offensive weapon with intent to commit unlawful violence.