Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what (a) data collection and (b) monitoring the Government plans to carry out over the course of the Knife Crime Prevention Orders pilot scheme.

The Government has announced that Knife Crime Prevention Orders will be piloted in London for a period of 14 months from 6 April this year. We have consulted on guidance to support the introduction of the pilot and we will be publishing final guidance, along with the Government response to the public consultation, shortly.

During the pilot, we will be working closely with the Metropolitan Police, the Crown Prosecution Service and Courts in London to monitor the use of Knife Crime Prevention Orders. This is likely to include data on numbers of Orders issued, their length, information about those who are made subject to the Orders, when they are reviewed, whether any of the Orders are breached and any other relevant information to allow for an assessment to be made of the success of the Orders in preventing offending.

As required by the Offensive Weapons Act 2019, we will lay a report on the pilot before Parliament in advance of wider rollout of Knife Crime Prevention Orders across England and Wales.