Question to the Home Office:

To ask Her Majesty's Government what plans they have to roll-out CCTV in areas which have high violent crime rates, including of knife crime.

While most public space CCTV systems are owned, monitored and managed by local authorities, the Government has supported local initiatives to inform the effective deployment of CCTV and is supportive of police and local authorities’ use of CCTV in helping to prevent and tackle serious violence. This is consistent with the focus of the Serious Violence Strategy, in using all available tools and techniques to respond to recent rises in serious violence. Since the launch of the Strategy in April 2018, we have, amongst a raft of activities, launched a £22m Early Intervention Youth Fund which is already supporting 29 projects in England and Wales, a national knife crime media campaign - #knife free; a new National County Lines Co-ordination Centre to tackle this violent and exploitative criminal activity; and the Offensive Weapons Bill to strengthen legislation on firearms, knives and corrosive substances.

On 2 October 2018 the Home Secretary announced further important measures including a consultation on new legal duty to support a multi-agency approach to preventing and tackling serious violence, a new long term £200 million Youth Endowment Fund, and an Independent Review of Drug Misuse

Most recently, on 13 March the Chancellor of the Exchequer announced that an additional £100 million, including £80 million of new funding from HM Treasury, for serious violence in 2019/20 to help the police’s immediate response to the rise in knife crime, and to support investment 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 serious violence altogether. It is important that we recognise that greater law enforcement on its own will not reduce serious violence and that we must continue to focus on prevention and early intervention alongside this.