Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps she is taking with Cabinet colleagues to deter knife crime among young people.

Tackling knife crime amongst young people is a top government priority and we are working tirelessly to keep young people, families, and communities safe. At the Home Office we are redoubling our efforts with a twin-track approach, combining tough enforcement to get dangerous weapons off the streets – including through stop and search methods – with programmes that steer young people away from crime.

This financial year we have invested £64m in our network of Violence Reduction Units (VRUs) which bring together local partners to tackle the drivers of violence in their area. VRUs are delivering a range of early intervention and prevention programmes to divert people away from a life of crime. They have reached over 215,000 vulnerable young people in their third year of funding alone.

Our £30m ‘Grip’ programme operates in these same 20 areas as VRUs and is helping to drive down violence by using a highly data-driven process to identify violence hotspots – often to individual street level – and target operational activity in those areas. In their first three years of funded delivery, these programmes have collectively prevented an estimated 136,000 violence without injury offences.

In addition, the Serious Violence Duty which commenced on 31^st January requires a range of public bodies to work together to prevent and reduce serious violence in their local area. Of course, the Home Office is not able to tackle violence alone, and we work closely with a range of government departments to build protective factors against violence.

For instance, we work with the Department for Education as we know that education is a powerful protective factor against violence for young people. The Government is investing over £45 million to fund specialist support in both mainstream and Alternative Provision (AP) schools in the areas where serious violence is most damaging to local communities.

Additionally, we are also delivering the £3.3 million Creating Opportunities Forum with the Department for Work and Pensions to provide meaningful employment-related opportunities and raise the aspirations of young people at risk of serious violence.

The Government remains wholly committed to preventing youth violence and keeping young people safe from harm.