Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if she will make an assessment of the potential merits of allowing knives to be sent to residential addresses where the parcel carrier has introduced a proof of age signature service which requires valid identification when signing for a delivery.

The Government is concerned about the sale of knives online to those under the age of 18 and we are determined to take strong action to address this.

As part of the development of the new Offensive Weapons Bill, which was announced on 8 April, we held a public consultation on a number of proposals including prohibiting knives sold online from being delivered to a private residential address.

Our intention is to prohibit the delivery of knives bought online to a residential address, requiring them to be picked up from a place where age can be checked. Deliveries to business premises would not be affected. This is aimed at strengthening the sale of knives to under 18s and is based on existing concerns about online retailers not complying with the current law that knives must not be sold to anyone under the age of 18.