Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether her Department has made an assessment of the effect of social media on trends in knife crime; and if she will make a statement.

As part of our work to develop a new Serious Violence Strategy the Home Office has considered a range of factors that may be driving increases in serious violence including the role of social media.

The Home Office is aware that gangs make use of a number of social media platforms to incite violence and taunt rival gangs and we work closely with the police to identify good practice in tackling this issue and to encourage the police to take action. Operation Domain is an ongoing successful Metropolitan Police Service project taking action against gang-related activity online, working with social media companies to remove relevant content.

The new Serious Violence Strategy will be published early this year.