Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what resources she has allocated to (a) researching and (b) tackling the causes of gun and knife-related crimes in (i) Coventry, (ii) the West Midlands and (iii) England.

The Government’s Serious Violence Strategy, published in April 2018, sets out our analysis of the trends and drivers behind rises in serious violence including gun and knife crime.

We are clear that the police must have the powers and resources they need to tackle gun and knife crime, wherever it occurs.? This is why we are recruiting 20,000 more police officers over the next three years and why the West Midlands police are receiving £620.4m in funding in 2020/21 – an increase of £49.1m on 2019/20.

In addition, the Home Office has committed over £176.5 million over two years to address

serious violence in the most affected 18 police force areas in England and Wales, which

includes £104.9 million to pay for a surge in police operational activity, of which £12,601,485 has been allocated to West Midlands police. The remaining £70 million is being invested in multi-agency Violence Reduction Units (VRUs) over two financial years, with £6,740,000 of this going directly to the West Midlands VRU. The VRU brings together police, local government, health and education professionals, community leaders and other key partners to identify the drivers of serious violence and agree a multi-agency response.

In relation to gun crime specifically, the Offensive Weapons Act 2019 has introduced a ban on certain rapid-firing rifles and we are introducing greater regulation of antique firearms to prevent their misuse by criminals. We have also consulted on statutory guidance on firearms licensing to improve standards and the consistency of police licensing decisions, and we have established a multi-agency national firearms threat assessment centre to improve our capability to disrupt the supply and use of illegal firearms by criminals and Organised Crime Groups.

The Offensive Weapons Act 2019 also gives the police more powers to tackle knife crime and will make it more difficult for young people to get hold of knives in the first place. The Act

introduces Knife Crime Prevention Orders which will help the police to steer those most at risk away from serious violence and knife crime, and we will be legislating to introduce new Serious Violence Reduction Orders to make it easier for the police to stop and search known knife

carriers.

The Serious Violence Strategy also puts an emphasis on prevention and early intervention. We are investing £200 million through the Youth Endowment Fund to invest in and evaluate early intervention projects and an additional £500 million over five years through the new Youth Investment Fund to build new youth centres, refurbish existing youth facilities, provide mobile facilities for harder to reach areas, and to invest in the youth work profession and frontline services.