Asked by: Natasha Irons (Labour - Croydon East)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what progress her Department has made on tackling knife crime.
Answered by Sarah Jones - Minister of State (Home Office)
We have set an ambitious but essential target: to halve knife crime over this decade. We are already seeing results. Knife crime is falling.
Since the start of this Parliament, knife crime has fallen by 8% and knife homicides are down by 27%.
We have banned ninja swords and zombie style machetes, we have taken nearly 60,000 knives off our streets and we have established new Young Futures Panels.
Asked by: Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Labour - Slough)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what recent discussions she has had with local authorities on the provision of services to prevent knife crime among young people.
Answered by Sarah Jones - Minister of State (Home Office)
This Government have set an ambitious but essential target to halve knife crime over this decade and we are making progress: since the start of this Parliament, knife crime has fallen by 8% and knife homicides are down by 27%.
To achieve this ambition we are engaging with partners across the system both to address knife crime and address the root causes of knife crime. This includes local authorities who play a vital role.
This role is formalised within the Serious Violence Duty which places a statutory requirement on a range of public sector bodies, including local authorities, to work collaboratively, analyse the local problem, and put in place a strategy to prevent and reduce serious violence. Community Safety Partnerships, led by the local authority and whose partners match those subject to the Serious Violence Duty must also comply with these requirements.
The Home Office had discussions and worked with relevant local authorities to deliver the extended knife surrender arrangements which the Government ran in July 2025 and covered various locations in London, West Midlands and Greater Manchester. The extended surrender arrangements involved the use of a mobile surrender van and 37 bespoke weapons surrender bins and a total of a 3,570 knives and weapons were surrendered through these arrangements.
The Home Office maintain regular discussions with local authorities through Violence Reduction Units (VRUs) and Young Futures Panels partnership arrangements to support the effective delivery of services to prevent knife crime among young people.
Asked by: Shivani Raja (Conservative - Leicester East)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps her Department is taking to tackle youth knife crime and serious violence in (a) Leicester and (b) the East Midlands.
Answered by Sarah Jones - Minister of State (Home Office)
We are already making clear progress against our ambition to halve knife crime. In our first year in Government, police-recorded knife crime offences fell by 5%.
We have banned zombie knives and ninja swords and are holding online sellers criminally responsible removing almost 60,000 knives from streets in England and Wales. We are taking a range of action in the Crime and Policing Bill to strengthen legislation on knives.
New crime mapping tools are already allowing us to identify highly specific knife crime concentrations and focus police and community safety resources where they are needed most. Further investment in cutting-edge capabilities, such as knife detection technology, improved data platforms, and live facial recognition will further enhance our ability to target knife crime.
Preventing young people from getting involved in crime is crucial to achieving our ambition. As part of the Young Futures programme, we are piloting new Young Futures Panels. These pilots proactively identify and refer children who may be falling through the gaps, to a range of different support services much earlier. More than 50 panels went operational in October and November, including in Leicestershire, Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire.
This financial year (2025/26), we have also allocated £47m to the network of 20 Violence Reduction Units (VRUs) across England and Wales to support their valuable work. VRUs bring together partners to understand and tackle the drivers of serious violence in their area. This includes over £1m in VRU grant funding to Leicestershire specifically. We have also allocated £194k to Leicestershire and £1.9m across the East Midlands in grant funding to continue the implementation of the Serious Violence Duty.
Asked by: Julian Smith (Conservative - Skipton and Ripon)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps she is taking to reduce knife crime in rural areas.
Answered by Sarah Jones - Minister of State (Home Office)
We are already making clear progress against our ambition to halve knife crime. In our first year, police-recorded knife crime offences fell by 5%, the first reduction in four years.
Knife homicides have also fallen by almost 20% over the last year, and we have seen a 10% reduction in hospital admissions for stabbings.
Whilst most knife crime occurs in urban centres, our national target to halve knife crime and whole society approach will reach every area. Our approach to tackling knife crime is centred around targeted interventions and enforcement, tough new legislation to remove dangerous weapons from our streets and working across government to tackle the root causes of knife crime where they are needed most.
We have banned zombie knives and ninja swords and are holding online sellers criminally responsible removing almost 60,000 knives from streets in England and Wales. We are taking a range of action in the Crime and Policing Bill to strengthen legislation on knives.
New crime mapping tools are already allowing us to identify highly specific knife crime hotspots and focus police and community safety resources where they are needed most. Further investment in cutting-edge capabilities, such as knife detection technology, improved data platforms, and live facial recognition will further enhance our ability to target knife crime.
Our Neighbourhood Policing Guarantee will deliver 13,000 additional neighbourhood policing personnel by the end of this Parliament, including up to 3,000 by March 2026. It will also ensure that every community, including rural communities, has named and contactable officers they can turn to.
This Government is clear that when you report a crime, it should be properly investigated with victims having faith that justice will be delivered, and criminals will be punished – no matter where you live. Rural communities can be assured that visible, neighbourhood policing is returning to our communities.
Asked by: Lord Cameron of Lochiel (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the impact of their weapon surrender bins on reducing violent crime.
Answered by Lord Hanson of Flint - Minister of State (Home Office)
The Government did not fund and provide surrender bins prior to 2025, when the Government funded 37 surrender bins, with 33 bins located in London, 1 in Greater Manchester and 3 in the West Midlands to support the extended knife surrender scheme held in July last year.
A total of 2,787 knives and weapons were deposited in the surrender bins.
Since the installation, one bin in London has been vandalised by graffiti.
The maintenance costs in 2025/26 for the surrender bins is £32,500 which includes the collection and disposal of surrendered weapons.
In relation to the impact of the surrender bins, the data the Government published demonstrates that they are being well used. The Government promoted the use of the surrender bins during the extended surrender arrangements and is continuing to encourage their use through engagement with the relevant local authorities and community safety leads.
Asked by: Jim Shannon (Democratic Unionist Party - Strangford)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what estimate he has made of the number of people in prison for knife relate crime, broken down by age.
Answered by Jake Richards - Assistant Whip
Statistics of this nature could not be obtained without incurring disproportionate cost.
Asked by: Rupert Lowe (Independent - Great Yarmouth)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment she has made of the potential implications for her policies of trends in the level of violent and drug-related crime in Great Yarmouth; and whether she plans to provide additional resources to Norfolk Constabulary.
Answered by Sarah Jones - Minister of State (Home Office)
To deliver on our pledge to halve knife crime in the next decade, it is crucial that we tackle the gangs that lure children and young people into crime and run county lines through violence and exploitation. County Lines is the most violent model of drug supply and a harmful form of child criminal exploitation. Through the County Lines Programme, we continue to target exploitative drug dealing gangs and break the organised crime groups behind the trade.
Since July 2024, law enforcement activity through the County Lines Programme taskforces has resulted in more than 3,000 deal lines closed, 8,200 arrests, (including the arrest and subsequent charge of over 1,600 deal line holders) 4,300 safeguarding referrals of children and vulnerable people, and 900 knives seized.
While the majority of county lines originate from the areas covered by the Metropolitan Police Service, West Midlands Police, Merseyside Police, Greater Manchester Police and West Yorkshire Police, we recognise that this is a national issue which affects all forces. This is why we fund the National County Lines Coordination Centre (NCLCC) to monitor the intelligence picture and co-ordinate a national law enforcement response, including publication of an annual Strategic Threat and Risk Assessment. We also have a dedicated fund to help local police forces, including Norfolk Constabulary, tackle county lines.
As part of the Programme, the NCLCC regularly coordinates weeks of intensive action against county lines gangs, which all police forces take part in, including Norfolk Constabulary. The most recent of these took place 23-29 June 2025 and resulted in 241 lines closed, as well as 1,965 arrests, 1,179 individuals safeguarded and 501 weapons seized.
We have made £200 million available in 2025/26 to support the first steps towards delivering 13,000 more neighbourhood policing personnel across England and Wales by the end of this Parliament, including up to 3,000 additional neighbourhood officers by the end of March 2026. Based on their £2,237,478 allocation from the Neighbourhood Policing Grant, Norfolk Police are projected to grow by 31 FTE neighbourhood police officers in 2025/26.
In addition, under the Hotspot Action Fund programme, Norfolk Constabulary are delivering additional policing in their areas worst affected by serious violence. 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. In 2025/26 we have provided Norfolk Constabulary £389,522 for their delivery of Hotspot Action Fund.
Asked by: Wendy Morton (Conservative - Aldridge-Brownhills)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps her Department is taking to expand the use of stop-and-search powers in areas with persistently high levels of knife crime.
Answered by Sarah Jones - Minister of State (Home Office)
Stop and search is an important power that helps the police to get knives off our streets and save lives.
Police have powers to search any individual or vehicle where there are reasonable grounds to suspect they will find offensive weapons. Where serious violence has occurred or is anticipated, powers are available to authorise weapons searches with or without reasonable suspicion in a particular area for a limited time.
Chief constables and their officers are best placed to make operational decisions about how these powers are deployed in response to crime trends, intelligence and local needs.
In addition to supporting the use of stop and search in our efforts to reduce knife crime, we have banned zombie-style knives and ninja swords, strengthened legislation, and removed over 60,000 knives through surrender schemes and targeted operations. We are investing in prevention through the Young Futures Programme and rebuilding neighbourhood policing, with 13,000 additional police officers, Police Community Support Officers and Special Constables in neighbourhood policing roles across England and Wales by the end of this Parliament. This includes delivering 3,000 additional officers into neighbourhood policing roles by March 2026.
In the year ending March 2025, 15,955 (3.0%) stop and searches resulted in an offensive weapon or firearm being found.
Searches carried out for firearms and offensive weapons had the highest find rate at 15.7% (670) and 12.3% (9,483) respectively.
The number of arrests following searches under all legislation increased by 2,705 (up 3.6% to 78,746) in the year ending March 2025.
Data on stop and search for the year ending March 2025 was published on 6 November 2025: Police powers and procedures: Stop and search, arrests and mental health detentions, England and Wales, year ending 31 March 2025
Asked by: Wendy Morton (Conservative - Aldridge-Brownhills)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps her Department is taking to expand the use of stop-and-search powers in areas with persistently high levels of knife crime.
Answered by Sarah Jones - Minister of State (Home Office)
Stop and search is an important power that helps the police to get knives off our streets and save lives.
Police have powers to search any individual or vehicle where there are reasonable grounds to suspect they will find offensive weapons. Where serious violence has occurred or is anticipated, powers are available to authorise weapons searches with or without reasonable suspicion in a particular area for a limited time.
Chief constables and their officers are best placed to make operational decisions about how these powers are deployed in response to crime trends, intelligence and local needs.
In addition to supporting the use of stop and search in our efforts to reduce knife crime, we have banned zombie-style knives and ninja swords, strengthened legislation, and removed over 60,000 knives through surrender schemes and targeted operations. We are investing in prevention through the Young Futures Programme and rebuilding neighbourhood policing, with 13,000 additional police officers, Police Community Support Officers and Special Constables in neighbourhood policing roles across England and Wales by the end of this Parliament. This includes delivering 3,000 additional officers into neighbourhood policing roles by March 2026.
In the year ending March 2025, 15,955 (3.0%) stop and searches resulted in an offensive weapon or firearm being found.
Searches carried out for firearms and offensive weapons had the highest find rate at 15.7% (670) and 12.3% (9,483) respectively.
The number of arrests following searches under all legislation increased by 2,705 (up 3.6% to 78,746) in the year ending March 2025.
Data on stop and search for the year ending March 2025 was published on 6 November 2025: Police powers and procedures: Stop and search, arrests and mental health detentions, England and Wales, year ending 31 March 2025
Asked by: Siân Berry (Green Party - Brighton Pavilion)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, with reference to recent data obtained by StopWatch via Freedom of Information of this year’s Operation Sceptre results, what assessment will be made of the cost-effectiveness of public knife amnesty bins compared with enforcement options for recovering knives and other weapons.
Answered by Sarah Jones - Minister of State (Home Office)
The Government continues to encourage police forces to undertake a series of coordinated national weeks of action to tackle knife crime under Operation Sceptre. In 2025 police have delivered two national weeks of intensification in May and November, and the data and operational results from these are owned and held by the police.
The Government ran an extended knife surrender arrangement in July 2025 in various areas in the West Midlands, Greater Manchester and London. This allowed members of the public to surrender weapons anonymously at a mobile surrender van operated by FazAmnesty and in 37 new surrender bins installed by Word 4 Weapons with Home Office funding.
A total of 3,570 knives and weapons were surrendered through these arrangements. The figures were set out in a Written Ministerial Statement on 30 October: Written statements - Written questions, answers and statements - UK Parliament
Across police operations, border seizures and knife surrender schemes this Government has already seen nearly 60,000 knives taken off our streets.