Question to the Cabinet Office:

To ask Her Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by Lord True on 4 February (HL5661), what is the latest available data on youth deaths by stabbing in (1) London, (2) Birmingham, (3) Coventry, (4) Liverpool, (5) Manchester, and (6) Newcastle, for the year ending March 2021.

The information requested falls under the remit of the UK Statistics Authority. I have, therefore, asked the Authority to respond.

Professor Sir Ian Diamond | National Statistician

The Rt Hon. the Lord Field of Birkenhead CH DL
House of Lords
London
SW1A 0PW

02 March 2022

Dear Lord Field,
As National Statistician and Chief Executive of the UK Statistics Authority, I am responding to your Parliamentary Question asking for the latest available data on number of youth deaths by stabbing in London, Birmingham, Coventry, Liverpool, Manchester and Newcastle for the year ending March 2021 (HL6441).

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) publishes homicide figures where the method of killing was by a knife or sharp instrument sourced from the Home Office Homicide Index, which is a database separate from the main police recorded crime dataset. It contains detailed record-level information about each homicide recorded by the police in England and Wales. It is continually updated with revised information from the police and courts and, as such, is a richer source of data than the main police recorded crime dataset.

We do not hold data on homicide by knife or sharp instrument by age below the national level. However, we have provided the estimates for England and Wales for the year ending March 2021 in Table 1. This data was published alongside Homicide in England and Wales, year ending March 2021[1].

Yours sincerely,

Professor Sir Ian Diamond

Table 1: Offences[2] currently recorded as homicide by a sharp instrument, by age[3], year ending March 2021

Source: Home Office - Homicide Index

1) https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/crimeandjustice/articles/homicideinenglan dandwales/yearendingmarch2021

2) As at 10 December 2021; figures are subject to revision as cases are dealt with by the police and by the courts, or as further information becomes available.

3) The age categories that have been used in this table are supplied by the Home Office.