Knife crime

Louie French Excerpts

Thursday 14th December 2023 Commons Chamber

[Wendy Morton]

The hon. Lady should be applauded for her work and the work of the APPG that she chairs. I am conscious of that call for action, to which I hope the Minister will respond.

We recognise that work on knife crime cuts across several Government Departments, including the Department for Education, the Ministry of Justice, the Department of Health and Social Care and the Home Office. I appreciate that my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole (Michael Tomlinson) is now a Minister in the Home Office, but I am sure he will do his best to address a range of issues while recognising that they have implications across Government.

Typically, 90% of attackers and victims are male. In London, 90% of knife crime offenders were male, and across England and Wales 91% of people admitted to hospital for assault by sharp objects were male. Low socioeconomic backgrounds are a factor too. A YouGov poll, commissioned by Barnardo’s, found one in five parents said that they will struggle to have time off work to spend with their children, meaning children are often left unsupervised. What concerns me most is when I hear young people say they carry a knife to make them feel safe. Surely, that has to be changed.

In 2018, the Government published a serious violence strategy to look at the root causes of the problem and how to support young people to lead lives away from violence. It was described at the time as taking a public health approach to serious violence, and various funds and programmes were set up, such as the Youth Endowment Fund and violence reduction units. Will the Minister update us on what his Department is doing to go further, working multi-agency with partners and community organisations on a number of levels?

This issue is also recognised by my hon. Friend the Member for Stourbridge (Suzanne Webb). She cannot be in the Chamber today, but she often speaks on the topic of knife crime. I wish to highlight to the Minister the first knife summit that she held recently, which joined together local community organisations, the police and the Midlands Air Ambulance Charity to discuss the need for a whole-community approach.

In August, the Home Office made a very welcome announcement on the banning of machetes and Zombie-style knives. It also said that the police were to be given new powers to seize and destroy any weapon that they find. I, along with others, will continue to call for that to happen and I look forward to seeing the necessary legislation pass through this place—I believe that it is coming in the Criminal Justice Bill, but perhaps the Minister can confirm that. Locally to me in the west midlands, the Express & Star newspaper has been actively campaigning on the issue, too. We need to see that legislation in place sooner rather than later.

In addition to the work of Ministers and the Government, it is important that we recognise and reinforce other routes to tackling this problem. For example, in Aldridge, following the tragic death of their beloved son, Mark and Beverley Brindley set up the Brindley Foundation to bring about positive social change and to reduce youth violence. Their campaign includes LifeOrKnife and the setting up of 12 knife amnesty bins across Walsall Borough for people to throw away their knives anonymously. Recognising that young people need support and that they need to be part of the solution includes education, mentoring and training. The Brindley Foundation initiative also has support from local businesses.

Another way would be to look at relationship, health and sex education in our schools so that children can learn about positive change and consequential thinking. I urge the Government to look again at this, because currently there is no national programme of education for children and young people and no targeted guidelines in the curriculum for such behaviours or prevention.

[Mr Louie French (Old Bexley and Sidcup) (Con)]

My right hon. Friend is making a fantastic speech on the importance of the whole community approach to this matter. Will she also join me in thanking the Mizen Foundation, which was set up by a family in Sidcup? Following their own grief from the death of their son, the family go in and out of schools across the country, encouraging that positive change in behaviour.

[Wendy Morton]

Absolutely, I commend the work that the family do. Yet again, it is a poignant example of how, when tragedy hits, so many families seek to find answers and ways to help themselves deal with the loss of a loved one through helping others. I absolutely recognise the work that they do.

A petition to make knife crime prevention a compulsory requirement on the school curriculum has attracted more than 10,000 signatures. Locally in Walsall, our Conservative councillors are also working hard with partners to tackle knife crime, recognising the need for a broad and holistic approach. Central to that is the need for a partnership between police and crime commissioners, local authorities and the third sector. I am pleased and proud that Walsall Borough Council, under the stewardship of Garry Perry, one of my local councillors, is working closely with the third sector and with organisations such as the Brindley Foundation to ensure that this issue receives the attention and prominence that it deserves.

Political leadership matters, too. Sadly, I do not always feel that we are seeing enough of that in the west midlands, where we have some of the highest rates of knife crime. There is often a void when it comes to working with local authorities and the third sector across the whole region. I am pleased to see the role of PCC being rolled into that of the West Midlands Mayor. This creates an excellent opportunity to bring together strong political leadership with—and this is important—a targeted and effective use of resources.

The first knife bin was rolled out in Aldridge, and Mayor Andy Street joined us that day, recognising the need both for a holistic approach, and for us to stand together, shoulder to shoulder, to rise to the challenge of tackling the problem. He also vowed to put a stop to plans to close 30 police stations across the region, including my own in Aldridge, which is also an important part of the solution.

Another area that I would like the Minister to consider, perhaps with his colleagues in the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, is the role of licensing committees. I have seen examples where those committees need to work better and more effectively with the local police, for instance, when it comes to requests for curfews as a method of public protection in town centres with challenging night-time economies. The installation and enforcement of knife arches in night clubs and the provision of bleed kits are practical measures that could and should be mandated for specific venues, and I would like to hear the Minister’s views on that as well.

At this point, I would like to mention and pay tribute to those at The Queens pub in Pelsall. Back in January, they began fundraising for a defibrillator and a bleed kit. This autumn, after numerous raffles, a collection tin in the pub and generous support from people across the local community, both of those were installed in memory of local lad, Reagan, who, sadly, lost his life to knife crime in 2017.

As I draw my contribution to this debate to a conclusion, I wish to acknowledge the work that the Government and others are doing on this topic and the fact that they have shown themselves willing to undertake more to address the issue of heinous knife crime. I commend and welcome the actions to date, but it is clear that further action is required, and is required now, to avoid more lives simply becoming a number on a data spreadsheet, and also, importantly, to strengthen our communities. With that, I stand committed to the cause.