Knife crime

Debate between Florence Eshalomi and Michael Tomlinson

Thursday 14th December 2023 Commons Chamber

[The Minister for Illegal Migration (Michael Tomlinson)]

May I join the shadow Minister in agreeing that this has been an important and constructive debate, and in praising my right hon. Friend the Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Wendy Morton) for securing it and all Members who have contributed so constructively and expertly? I will start by picking up two points in my right hon. Friend’s speech, before picking up more of the threads. I join her in welcoming the campaign by her local newspaper The Express and Star to highlight this really important issue. I also welcome the role of the police and crime commissioner being rolled into that of the Mayor of the West Midlands. I agree with her that that will be a constructive move, and I look forward to it with her.

The hon. Member for Vauxhall (Florence Eshalomi) spoke powerfully and with authority, as she always does, and I will comment on some of the points that she raised. I commend her for the work done by the all-party parliamentary group on child criminal exploitation and knife crime, and I acknowledge the change in name that she has championed. She spoke powerfully and reflected on her maiden speech, and she mentioned some youth organisations. She had a constructive debate across the Chamber with my hon. Friend the Member for Aylesbury (Rob Butler), who acknowledged the work of voluntary organisations, churches and other faith groups.

I commend my hon. Friend the Member for Aylesbury for mentioning Southcourt Baptist church and the excellent work that it has done. I acknowledge his expertise as a former board member of the Youth Justice Board and a former justice of the peace. I was a youth court aficionado in my younger days—as a young barrister, I should add. Carrying a knife does not make someone safer—quite the contrary.

May I address directly the shadow Minister’s point about swords, which is a serious one? Since the launch of the consultation to which I will turn in a moment, there has been interest in extending the ban to swords, and I understand the reasoning. However, the police have told us that the greatest risk at the moment is the use of zombie-style knives and machetes, so that is the focus of the work. It will be kept under review, and I am grateful to him for raising that issue.

May I now turn to some of the more specific issues raised by my right hon. Friend the Member for Aldridge-Brownhills? Both she and my hon. Friend the Member for Aylesbury mentioned violence reduction units. He mentioned that 20 have been rolled out across the country, delivering a range of early intervention and prevention programmes to divert people away from a life of crime. The approach is working and is a good start, and the Grip hotspots are having an effect. I know that my right hon. Friend the Member for Aldridge-Brownhills will welcome that, and I can confirm that the West Midlands police receive funding, and rightly so, for both of those programmes.

May I turn to the consultation, which has been mentioned a number of times? Earlier this year, there were five proposals to tackle knife crime during the course of that consultation. We have been taking them forward and will do so in a suitable way. My right hon. Friend the Member for Aldridge-Brownhills asks me how and when. As a former member of the Committee of Selection, she might like to look out in the new year for a particular statutory instrument Committee that will be of interest to her. I cannot confirm the precise date, but I know that she will have ways and means of finding out precisely how to get on to that Committee and to be a strong voice during the passage of that statutory instrument. We will introduce a ban on certain types of large knives that seem to appeal to those who want to use them as weapons. We will give the police more powers to seize those dangerous weapons, and create a new offence of possession of a bladed weapon with intent to harm, as well as increasing sentences.

May I turn to some of the other points that have been raised, and to some of the other actions that the Government are taking? Let me touch on serious violence reduction orders. In April we launched a pilot for serious violence reduction orders, with the west midlands being one of the four pilot areas. These civil orders give the police the authority to stop and search known knife and weapon carriers, and they are designed both to deter and to protect.

One of the most important things that my right hon. Friend the Member for Aldridge-Brownhills mentioned was cross-Government working. She was absolutely right to do so, and a number of others picked up on this theme. That is absolutely right, because tackling knife crime requires a truly cross-Government approach. We are working very closely with other Departments, and I shall mention just three. The Department for Culture, Media and Sport recently announced the new Building Futures programme, which will provide mentoring and life skills training to those at risk of falling out of education—the Minister sitting next to me, my right hon. Friend the Member for Maldon (Sir John Whittingdale), is nodding vigorously in support of that. There is also a new summer jobs programme targeted at 2,600 young people at risk of involvement in youth violence and crime.

[Florence Eshalomi]

I thank the Minister for highlighting those really important points. My constituency of Vauxhall is home to the wonderful south bank, and a number of organisations do powerful work in getting young people from diverse and untraditional backgrounds into the creative industry and into arts and media. They need more funding for that.

[Michael Tomlinson]

I invite the hon. Lady to lobby the Department for Culture, Media and Sport. If she stays for the next debate, she may even be able to lobby a Minister in person, but her bid has been heard loud and clear.

I turn now to the Department for Education, which is doing some work with a project called SAFE—Support, Attain, Fulfil, Exceed. There is £30 million-worth of funding for the taskforces. They are being delivered in 10 serious violence hotspots and aim to keep young people engaged in mainstream education. I will also mention the Ministry of Justice, because it has been mentioned during the debate. There is a programme called Turnaround, which provides extra funding for youth offending teams to intervene early and to ensure that children who are on the cusp of offending or being targeted are connected.

In the minute or so that I have left, may I close by thanking right hon. and hon. Members for their contributions to this very constructive debate? I agree that the scourge of knife crime is not a party political issue; it is a cross-party issue. I pay tribute not just to the right hon. and hon. Members who have spoken in the debate, but to the parents of Jimmy and the Mizen Foundation. I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup (Mr French) for raising that. May I also pay tribute to the family of James Brindley and the Brindley Foundation? I know how hard it is to lose a young family member. In paying tribute to James Brindley’s family and others, may I say that they are continuing to ensure that something good might come from such tragedies?