Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps she is taking to reduce knife crime in (a) Slough and (b) the UK.

This Government is determined to turn the tide on knife crime in all areas, wherever it occurs. Across England and Wales, we are recruiting 20,000 more police officers over the next three years and increasing sentences for violent criminals. We have made it easier for the police to use enhanced stop and search powers and we will introduce a new court order to make it easier for the police to stop and search those who have been convicted of knife crime.

We will also ensure that anyone charged with knife possession will appear before magistrates within days and we are also making £10 million available to the police to equip more officers with tasers. In addition, we have legislated through the Offensive Weapons Act 2019 to give the police more powers and to ensure knives are less likely to make their way on to the streets and we will also be introducing the Serious Violence Bill to place a duty on the police, councils and health authorities to work together to prevent and tackle serious violence.

Over the last 12 months, we have increased police funding, by £1 billion this year and announced that the amount of funding available to the policing system in 2020 to 2021 will increase by more than £1.1 billion. We have also announced a targeted £25 million to tackle county lines drug gangs, given the links between drugs, county lines and serious violence and we have provided the £100 million Serious Violence Fund to provide support to the 18 police force areas most affected by serious violence.

Of this, Thames Valley Police has been allocated £1.94 million to pay for a surge in police operational activity, such as increased patrols in greater numbers for longer periods of times, as well as new equipment and technology, improved intelligence and targeting, and an enhanced investigative response. A further £1.16m from the Fund was invested in developing Thames Valley Police’s Violence Reduction Unit.

We continue to prioritise funding for tackling serious violence, which will be backed with £119 million in 2020-21. On 29 December 2019 the Home Secretary announced a further £35 million to continue funding Violence Reduction Units. Thames Valley Police has been allocated another £1.16m for 2020/21 to continue to tackle the root causes of serious violence.

In addition, the first grant round of the Youth Endowment Fund has also taken place, with 23 successful projects across England and Wales sharing £17.1m over 2 years for work to support children and young people most vulnerable from becoming involved in crime and violence. This includes £975,000 for a project Achieving for Children, being delivered in three locations, Kingston, Richmond and Maidenhead, Berkshire. In addition, through our Early Intervention Youth Fund, the Thames Valley Police and Crime Commissioner has received £822,000 in 2018-20 to help fund a programme of interventions involving outreach and youth work with high risk young people across the force area.