Offensive Weapons Bill

Debate between Huw Merriman and Bob Stewart

Ping Pong: House of Commons
Tuesday 26th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Huw Merriman]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East (Stuart C. McDonald), whose constituency I will not even try to pronounce correctly. He always speaks with such eloquence. I attended the same meeting of groups hosted by the hon. Member for Croydon Central (Sarah Jones) and listened to the arguments about knife crime prevention orders. It was hard not to be persuaded by some of those arguments, but I want to explain why I think introducing those orders is the right thing to do.

The Government are absolutely right to follow a public health approach to knife crime. It is time to look holistically at all our agencies in delivering both a health-based solution and a criminal justice solution. We have the youth endowment fund and the review of drugs policy, and we should recognise that prison sentences for knife crime have increased: 85% of people convicted serve at least three months, compared with 53% only 10 years ago. The courts are putting in place a whole range of tougher measures, and the Government and local authorities are looking to introduce wraparound support, yet the reality is that knife crime is endemic and will not be solved in the short term with those measures alone. I therefore absolutely support knife crime prevention orders.

What makes this issue so stark for me is the number of recorded knife crime offences in the 12 months to September 2018. There were 40,000—an increase of two thirds since March 2014. Those figures are appalling. In the context of overall violence having fallen by a quarter since 2013, it is clear that we have an issue specific to the carrying of knives. I was struck by a recent survey by the Centre for Social Justice, in which 6% of Londoners polled confessed to having carried a knife in the past 12 months. There is a contagion effect. Young people carry knives to protect themselves, because they do not feel confident, but we all know that someone is more likely to die when they are carrying a knife than when they are not. We must make some kind of intervention to tackle that.

The Mayor of London was absolutely right in his letter to the Home Secretary in December. He was critical because nothing had yet been inserted into the Bill. He said that he was

“concerned to note that despite requests from the police…no amendments have yet been tabled”.

Now they have, which is to be welcomed. He went on to say that the introduction of the orders would

“enable better protection for the community, particularly those working with vulnerable and high-risk young people,”

and added:

“At the same time, they will enable the police and partner agencies to intervene and prevent future crime.”

They will prevent future tragedies, too.

Last month, I heard from senior officers in the Met who have asked for knife crime prevention orders to be introduced. Again, it was hard not to be impressed by what they had to say. Absolutely, introducing the orders is a slight roll of the dice—they are new and innovative—but it is important that we do so.

[Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)]

I think the main point is that if someone is on a knife crime prevention order, people around them will realise that they are and may concentrate more on looking after them and stopping them doing something wrong again. That is very important, too.

[Huw Merriman]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right: this is about that care and intervention as well as having a deterrent. Of course there has to be a deterrent.

We must not overlook the fact that applications will have to be made by either the Crown Prosecution Service or a chief officer of police, and that the court will have to be satisfied, on the balance of probabilities, that on at least two occasions in the previous two years the defendant had a bladed article in a public place or a place of education. That is not enough, either: if there has been a big conversion, that can be demonstrated, and the magistrates court must think it is necessary to make the order to protect the public from harm from a bladed article or, indeed, to protect the respondent from committing an offence.

We talk about locks; there is a series of locks in the magistrates courts, and we must trust our magistrates to look fairly and objectively at the evidence before putting in place an order, which I say will deter young people from causing a tragedy to themselves or other people. Only if that order is breached will we be talking about a custodial sentence. Orders will be reviewed if they are longer than 12 months, and they can be varied, too. To me, they make absolute sense.

I will conclude by explaining why I feel so passionately about this issue. We can talk about long-term interventions, but the reality for young people who carry knives is that one mistake leads to loss of life—either theirs or others’. The impacts of that are dramatic. In 2007, the number of knife crime-related homicides was high—it was 272. We —both Labour and Conservative Governments—brought it down to 186 in 2015. It has now risen to 285 killings in the last year, which is the highest since records began in 1946. Something has to be done, and done now.