Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Sarah Jones and Ian Roome

Monday 9th February 2026 Commons Chamber

[Sarah Jones]

Absolutely. I welcome the conversation that my hon. Friend is having with his constituents and the children, who I know are deeply worried about knife crime. This Government have a target to halve knife crime in a decade. Since the start of this Parliament, knife crime has fallen by 8%, and knife homicides are down by 27%, but we will not stop until we reach that target.

[Ian Roome (North Devon) (LD)]

The Home Office has said that a new licence to practice will be required by all police officers. Can the Minister explain how that will differ from what is required under police conduct regulations, the police code of ethics and current police training programmes?

[Sarah Jones]

The licence to practice is being introduced to ensure that all officers, at whatever stage in their career, are getting the right support and the training that they need to do the jobs that we demand of them. We have said explicitly that we will design this with policing, so that we can get this right, but it is about supporting the police to do the jobs that we all need them to do.