Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether his Department has made an assessment of the possible merits of implementing Scotland's Violence Reduction Unit strategy in London in order to tackle knife crime.

Tackling serious violence is a top priority for the Government and it is clear we must continue to step up the response to stop this violence. The Serious Violence Strategy sets out the Government’s approach, which depends also on a multi-agency approach across several sectors and stresses the importance of early intervention to tackle the root causes.

The Home Secretary announced in October 2018 that the Government will: deliver a new £200 million youth endowment fund over 10 years and will support interventions with children and young people at risk of involvement in crime and violence; conduct an independent review of drug misuse which will ensure law enforcement agencies and policy are targeting and preventing the drug-related causes of violent crime effectively; consult on a new legal duty to support a multi-agency approach to preventing and tackling serious violence.

The consultation will explore different options to make multi-agency working more effective than at present and will seek to identify best practice. The consultation will be launched shortly.

In addition, the Chancellor of the Exchequer announced on 13 March that an additional £100 million funding in 19/20 will help in the police’s immediate response to the rise in serious knife crime, enabling priority forces to immediately begin planning to put in place the additional capacity they need. The funding will also be invested in Violence Reduction Units, bringing together a range of agencies including health, education, social services and others, to develop a multi-agency approach in preventing knife crime altogether.