Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many and what proportion of all sentences handed down for (a) possession of and (b) threatening with a knife were custodial sentences in the last year for which figures are available.

In 2017 11,809 possession of a blade or point offences resulted in a conviction and of these 7,339 received some form of custodial sentence (62%). A custodial sentence can be either an immediate custodial sentence or a suspended sentence order. There were 649 threatening with a blade or point offences in 2017 receiving a conviction and of these 522 received some form of custodial sentence (80%).