Question to the Attorney General:

To ask the Attorney General, what steps he is taking to tackle the rise in knife crime.

Government Departments are working quickly to tackle knife crime and the CPS continues to prosecute knife crime robustly. Charges for offensive weapons and possession of a bladed article increased to 27,525 in 2017/18, compared with 25,993 in 2016/17.

I attended the Serious Youth Violence Summit hosted by the Prime Minister in April to discuss this serious issue. Following the Summit, cross-government work will now be overseen and driven forward by the new Serious Violence Strategy Implementation Taskforce chaired by the Prime Minister. The Attorney General will be a member of this Taskforce, and both he and I regularly engage with discussions about effectively tackling knife crime.