Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what recent discussions she has had with the Secretary of State for the Home Department on regarding knife crime.

Answered by David Johnston - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)

The department does not hold data on how many weapons have been seized in schools.

The statutory ‘Keeping Children Safe in Education’ (KCSIE) guidance advises schools on creating safe environments. KCSIE is clear that all staff should have an awareness of safeguarding issues that can put children at risk of harm. The ‘Searching, Screening and Confiscation’ Guidance was updated in 2022 to emphasise the importance of the school duty to safeguard and promote the welfare of all pupils and staff. Headteachers, and the staff they authorise, have a statutory power to search a pupil or their possessions, where they have reasonable grounds to suspect that the pupil may have a prohibited item, such as knives or weapons, and confiscate such items.

The department works across government, and with other partners, on initiatives to prevent serious violence, including knife crime. Over £50 million has been made available to fund specialist support in mainstream and alternative provision schools in the areas where serious violence most affects children and communities. This includes SAFE (‘Support, Attend, Fulfil, Exceed’) taskforces that have been established in ten areas, reaching over 2,100 children as of September 2023. Taskforces are school-led partnerships investing in evidence-based interventions in and around school, such as mentoring and social skills training, that reach children early on, to re-engage them in their education and reduce their involvement in serious violence. To benefit areas outside of the programme, the department has published a supportive guide on school-based interventions, which is available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/safe-taskforces.

Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what the charge rate for knife crime offences was in England in (a) 2018 and (b) 2023.

Answered by Chris Philp - Minister of State (Home Office)

Overall levels of violent crime experienced by the general population are down by 51% since 2010, according to the Crime Survey for England and Wales. Levels of serious youth violence, as measured by the number of under-25 hospital admissions following an assault with a knife or other bladed instrument, are down by 25% in England and Wales compared with the year ending 2019.

The Home Office collects and publishes data on the investigative outcomes of crimes recorded by the police in England and Wales. These data can be found in the Home Office Open Data Tables, available here: Police recorded crime and outcomes open data tables - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk).

Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether his Department has made a recent assessment of the effectiveness of knife arches operated by the police in ensuring safe night-time economies.

Answered by Chris Philp - Minister of State (Home Office)

The Home Office has not conducted any recent assessments of the effectiveness of knife arches operated by the police. Whether or how to deploy knife arches remains a decision for police forces to take at a local level.

Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps he is taking to help tackle knife crime in (a) Enfield North Constituency, (b) the London Borough of Enfield and (c) London.

Answered by Chris Philp - Minister of State (Home Office)

Since 2019, the Home Office has provided over £43m of funding for a London Violence Reduction Unit (VRU) (including £9.5m this year) which is providing a multi-agency, preventative response designed to tackle the drivers of serious violence and knife crime. In addition, we have invested over £60m (including c.£8.9m this year) in ‘hotspot policing’ to boost the policing response to serious violence in London and provide high-visibility police patrols and problem-solving tactics in the streets and neighbourhoods most affected.

VRUs are tasked with investing in evidence-based approaches designed to steer vulnerable young people away from involvement in violence. As part of this approach, the London VRU is funding local interventions in Enfield including an outreach and detached youth team which delivers after school activities and creative sessions, 1-1 holistic support for young people, mentoring sessions and sports sessions for children and young people. Alongside this, the policing hot spot response programme is targeting key locations in Enfield Town and Fore Street. In addition to additional visible police patrols, policing interventions delivered through this programme in Enfield have included work to prevent robberies of school pupils and work to target males who were assaulting sex workers.

The government is also taking forward a programme of national activity to drive down knife crime. This includes recent consultation on new legislative proposals, including a ban of zombie-style knives and machetes. The government response was published on 30 August 2023. Following careful consideration of the responses to the consultation, a Statutory Instrument was laid in Parliament on 25 January 2024. Once the legislation has been approved by Parliament, a surrender scheme will be launched this summer to remove these items from our streets and once this has been completed, the manufacture, supply, sale and possession of zombie-style knives and machetes will be outlawed from 24 September 2024. This will cover face to face and online sales.

Additionally, through the Criminal Justice Bill 2023, which is currently progressing through parliament, we are providing more powers for police to seize knives held in private that they believe will be used for unlawful violence, increasing the maximum penalty for the offences of selling prohibited weapons and selling knives to under 18s and creating a new offence of possessing an article with blade or point or an offensive weapon with intent to commit unlawful violence.

Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if he will commission research into the prevalence of offending with (a) knives and (b) other sharp instruments in domestic residential settings.

Answered by Chris Philp - Minister of State (Home Office)

The Home Office does not hold the requested data. Statistics on knife or sharp instrument offences may be found as part of the Office for National Statistics release: Crime in England and Wales: year ending September 2023.

www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/crimeandjustice/bulletins/crimeinenglandandwales/yearendingseptember2023

There are no plans at present to commission specific research to provide a data set about prevalence of knife / sharp instrument offending in domestic residential settings.

The Home Office regularly considers representations about knife crime and knives from interested parties including the police, Members of Parliament and members of the public. This has on occasion included representations about round tipped kitchen knives reducing the risk of injury.

Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many offences involving (a) knives and (b) other sharp instruments were recorded in a (i) domestic residence and (ii) non-domestic setting by each police force in England and Wales in the last year for which information is available; and if he will provide a breakdown of those figures by the gender of the victim.

Answered by Chris Philp - Minister of State (Home Office)

The Home Office does not hold the requested data. Statistics on knife or sharp instrument offences may be found as part of the Office for National Statistics release: Crime in England and Wales: year ending September 2023.

www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/crimeandjustice/bulletins/crimeinenglandandwales/yearendingseptember2023

There are no plans at present to commission specific research to provide a data set about prevalence of knife / sharp instrument offending in domestic residential settings.

The Home Office regularly considers representations about knife crime and knives from interested parties including the police, Members of Parliament and members of the public. This has on occasion included representations about round tipped kitchen knives reducing the risk of injury.

Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps he has taken to work with relevant authorities to tackle knife (a) possession and (b) crime among youth in (i) England and (ii) Romford constituency.

Answered by Chris Philp - Minister of State (Home Office)

Tackling knife crime is a priority and the Government is determined to crack down on the scourge of violence devastating our communities.

We recently consulted on new legislative proposals to tackle knife crime and as a result, in the Criminal Justice Bill, we have introduced provisions to provide more powers for police to seize knives held in private that could be used in crimes, increase the maximum penalty for the offences of selling prohibited weapons and selling knives to under 18s. In the next few weeks, the Government intends to introduce a new ban on zombie-style machetes and knives.

As a result of the Government’s Police Uplift Programme (PUP) the Metropolitan police service has recruited 3,468 additional uplift officers against a total three-year allocation of 4,557 officers. The Metropolitan Police’s funding will be up to £3,581.1 million for 2024/25, an increase of up to £118.9 million when compared to 2023/24.

Under this Government, it has never been easier for the police to make legitimate use of stop and search powers. Every knife seized through stop and search is a potential life saved. In 2022-23, stop and search removed over 15,000 weapons and firearms from our streets and resulted over 74,000 arrests across England and Wales. In Essex there were over 2,000 resultant arrests following a stop and search and almost 4,600 searches resulted in a stolen or prohibited article being found in 2022-23.

The Home Office has invested over £160m since 2019 into the development of 20 Violence Reduction Units across England and Wales with a further £55m made available for 2023/24. Since 2019, we have provided over £43 million to develop and run the London Violence Reduction Unit, which covers Havering. This includes an investment of £9.5m in 2023/24. Violence Reduction Units deter people, particularly young people, from becoming involved in serious violence by bringing together partners from health, probation, policing, housing and beyond and investing in the best evidence-based interventions.

Through our Grip programme, we are providing additional funding to enable the Metropolitan police to boost patrols in specific streets and neighbourhoods most affected by violence, including Romford High Street. This programme is providing regular, visible patrols to deter violence and provide community reassurance as well as problem-oriented policing.

Problem-oriented policing is based on an analytical approach that seeks to identify and respond to the specific drivers of violence as they affect the particular location, so that working with partners, the police can take effective preventative action to tackle these. Since 2019, we have provided The Met Police with c.£51.8 million for their delivery of the programme and have awarded them a further c.£8.9 million for this (23/24) financial year.

Violence Reduction Units, in combination with GRIP, have delivered a statistically significant reduction in hospital admissions for violent injuries since funding began in 2019 (an estimated 3,220 admissions have been prevented in areas where the programmes operate).

Over 10 years the Home Office is investing £200m in early intervention and prevention initiatives to help children and young people at risk of exploitation and involvement in serious violence, through the Youth Endowment Fund.

The YEF have funded the SW!TCH Lives project in Romford, which aimed to promote positive actions and emotions and reduce risky behaviour by providing young people with consistent, positive role models, weekly mentoring and positive peer networks. They have also funded ‘You and Me Counselling’ as part of the COVID-19 Learning Project, which aimed to provide targeted support to young people at risk of being involved in violence; and second, to learn fast about the best ways to reach young people during a period of social distancing.

Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many convictions there have been for (a) selling and (b) supplying knives to those aged under 18 in (i) 2021 and (ii) 2022.

Answered by Gareth Bacon - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Justice)

The Ministry of Justice publishes information on the number of convictions in England and Wales for the following offences:

• 19522 - Selling a blade to a person aged under 18 years
• 19520 - Summary offences under Restriction of Offensive Weapons Act 1959 and Criminal Justice Act 1988

These can be accessed by navigating to the ‘Prosecutions and convictions’ tab and using the HO Offence Code filter to select the above offences in the Outcomes by Offence data tool.

19520 - Summary offences under the Restriction of Offensive Weapons Act 1959 and the Criminal Justice Act 1988’ includes offences related to supplying offensive weapons. However, information on whether these relate to supplying knives specifically or whether they are sold to those aged under 18 is not held centrally in the Court Proceedings database.

Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps he is taking to tackle knife crime in Solihull constituency.

Answered by Chris Philp - Minister of State (Home Office)

Tackling knife crime and violent assaults is a priority and the Government is determined to crack down on the scourge of violence devastating our communities.

As a result of the Government’s Police Uplift Programme (PUP) the West Midlands Force recruited 1,376 additional uplift officers against a total three-year allocation of 1,218 officers. On 31 March 2023, there were 8,067 police officers in West Midlands, a total growth of 1,376 additional officers against the baseline (6,691) at the start of the Police Uplift Programme.

The Government is proposing a total police funding settlement of up to £18.4 billion in 2024-25, an increase of up to £842.9 million when compared to 2023-24. Assuming full take up of precept flexibility, overall police funding available to PCCs will increase by up to £922.2 million (6.0% in cash terms). West Midlands funding will be up to £789.4 million for 2024/25, an increase of up to £50 million when compared to 2023/24.

West Midlands Police are delivering additional policing in their areas worst affected by serious violence via the Grip programme funding, including in Solihull City Centre. This is a combination of regular visible patrols in the streets and neighbourhoods (‘hotspot areas’) experiencing the highest volumes of serious violence to immediately suppress violence and provide community reassurance, and problem-oriented policing. Problem-oriented policing is bespoke to the local areas to tackle the local underlying drivers of crime, using a more comprehensive menu of policing interventions and enforcement. Interventions in the Force area have included targeted open space knife sweeps, knife crime education in schools, and conducting safeguarding referrals. Grip-funded analysts monitor operational police activity within the hotspots, as well as crime levels, to understand the effects of additional patrols on violent crime.

Violence Reduction Units (VRUs) bring together local partners to understand and tackle the drivers of serious violence in their area. They facilitate the sharing of data across organisational boundaries to build a shared understanding of the root causes of violence locally.

In the West Midlands its VRU delivers a range of preventative interventions, including Hospital and Custody Navigators (youth workers in settings steering young people away from violence at a ‘teachable moment’), cognitive behavioural therapy programmes and sports-based diversionary programmes.

Violence Reduction Units, in combination with Grip, have delivered a statistically significant reduction in hospital admissions for violent injuries since funding began in 2019 (an estimated 3,220 admissions have been prevented in areas where the programmes operate). VRUs have supported over 271,000 young people through funded initiatives in in their fourth year of operation alone.

We also recently consulted on new legislative proposals to tackle knife crime and as a result, in the Criminal Justice Bill, we have introduced provisions to provide more powers for police to seize knives held in private that could be used in crimes, increase the maximum penalty for the offences of selling prohibited weapons and selling knives to under 18s. When Parliamentary time allows, the Government intends to introduce a new ban on zombie-style machetes and knives.

Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many people have been prosecuted for knife crime in England since January 2020.

Answered by Gareth Bacon - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Justice)

The Ministry of Justice publishes information on the number of prosecutions for criminal offences, in the Outcomes by Offence data tool. This information can be further broken down by offence group and specific offences using the appropriate filters (for knife crime offences, select ‘10D Possession of article with blade or point’ in the Offence filter). To see prosecutions for England only, Welsh police force areas (Dyfed Powys, Gwent, North Wales, South Wales) can be deselected from the appropriate filter.

Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether he has made an assessment of the potential factors that contribute to teenage involvement in knife crime.

Answered by Chris Philp - Minister of State (Home Office)

Home Office analysts have previously produced a report examining risk factors for serious violence (including weapons carrying) based on two UK-based longitudinal surveys of young people.

The report is available at the following link: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/5d36d7fa40f0b604d8e5fe4b/analysis-of-indicators-of-serious-violence-horr110.pdf

Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps his Department is taking to help tackle knife crime in (a) Romford constituency and (b) England.

Answered by Chris Philp - Minister of State (Home Office)

Tackling knife crime is a priority and the Government is determined to crack down on the scourge of violence devastating our communities.

As a result of the Government’s Police Uplift Programme (PUP) the Metropolitan Police Service now has over 35,000 officers (35,411), the highest number on record.

On 31 January, the Government confirmed a total police funding settlement of up to £17.2 billion in 2023/24, an increase of up to £313.8 million when compared to 2022/23. The Metropolitan Police’s funding will be up to £3.3 billion in 2023/24, an increase of up to £102.3 million when compared to 2022/23.

Since 2019, we have provided over £43 million to develop and run the London Violence Reduction Unit, which covers Havering, including Romford. Violence Reduction Units deter people, particularly young people, from becoming involved in serious violence by bringing together partners from health, probation, policing, housing and beyond and investing in the best evidence-based interventions.

Since 2019 we have provided the Metropolitan Police, who serve Havering, with over £61 million to deliver targeted enforcement action to tackle serious violence. The Grip programme suppresses and prevents serious violence by using data to identify the top violence hotspots and targets visible police activity in those areas.

We recently consulted on new legislative proposals to tackle knife crime and as a result, in the Criminal Justice Bill, we have introduced provisions to provide more powers for police to seize knives held in private that could be used in crimes, increase the maximum penalty for the offences of selling prohibited weapons and selling knives to under 18s. When Parliamentary time allows, the Government intends to introduce a new ban on zombie-style machetes and knives that have no practical use.

Finally, we are also providing £200 million over 10 years for the Youth Endowment Fund, to test and evaluate what works to ensure those young people most at risk are given the opportunity to turn away from violence. This includes a variety of projects across London.

Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what information her Department holds on the types of (a) knives and (b) other sharp instruments that have been used in (i) homicides and (ii) other offences involving those instruments in the latest period for which data is available.

Answered by Chris Philp - Minister of State (Home Office)

The Home Office Homicide Index holds detailed data on homicides recorded by the police in England and Wales. Information on the type of sharp instrument used in a homicide was added to the collection in April 2022. These data, for the year ending March 2023, are due to be published by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) in February 2024.

The Home Office does not routinely collect information on the types of knives or sharp instruments used in other offences.

The year ending June 2023 Crime Survey for England and Wales (CSEW) published by the ONS shows that violent incidents have fallen by 52% since the year ending March 2010.

Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps she plans to take to tackle illegal online advertisement of knives intended to encourage (a) combat and (b) violent behaviour.

Answered by Chris Philp - Minister of State (Home Office)

Under measures in the Knives Act 1997 it is an offence to market a knife in a way which indicates, or suggests, that it is suitable for combat, or is otherwise likely to encourage violent behaviour involving the use of the knife as a weapon. A person found guilty of this offence on indictment can face up to 2 years imprisonment or a fine or both.

We are also introducing the Online Safety Bill which is currently in its final stages in Parliament. The legislation will achieve Royal Assent this Autumn and Ofcom’s powers will commence shortly after.

For the first time in the UK, tech companies are going to be accountable to an independent regulator to keep their users, particularly children, safe. They will need to remove and limit the spread of illegal content. This means less illegal content online and when it does appear it will be removed quicker.

Schedule 7 of the Bill sets out a series of priority offences which includes the sale of weapons online, including sales from online marketplaces. Companies will need to take particularly robust action to prevent the proliferation of this content online and ensure that their services are not used for offending. This means companies will need to proactively mitigate the risk that their services are used for illegal activity including removing any content that does appear as soon as they are made aware of it.

In addition, as part of DCMS' Online Advertising Programme, the government will introduce a new and targeted regulatory framework for paid-for online advertising, which will focus on tackling illegal advertising and increasing the protection of children and young people from adverts for products and services that are illegal to sell.

DCMS will be issuing a consultation on the details of the proposed regulation in due course and have convened a ministerially-led industry taskforce to drive forward non-legislative action meanwhile.

Found: 197852 Date tabled: 05 Sep 2023 | Date for answer: 11 Sep 2023 | Date answered: 11 Sep 2023 Knives