Knife Crime

Debate between Sarah Jones and Sarah Pochin

Tuesday 14th April 2026 Commons Chamber

[Sarah Jones]

I assure my hon. Friend that every part of the country, including Bournemouth, will be part of our action plan. We are making interventions across the whole country, as well as very targeted interventions where knife crime is particularly acute. I have already outlined our interventions in schools, whether that is support for the schools where the problem is most acute, or the overall interventions to make sure schools are fulfilling new guidance on violence prevention. Lots of brilliant people—my hon. Friend spoke about Tracy—are going into our schools and sending really powerful messages to our young people. I absolutely support that work, and a lot of our violence reduction units provide funding for those kinds of interventions.

[Sarah Pochin (Runcorn and Helsby) (Reform)]

While I of course welcome the statement and any attempt to reduce and tackle knife crime, does the Minister not agree that without saturation stop and search, and without immediate custody of anyone found in possession of a knife without a valid reason, the rest is just white noise?

[Sarah Jones]

I welcome the hon. Lady’s welcoming of the statement—it is appreciated.

Stop and search is a really important tool. I am not entirely sure what “saturation stop and search” is, but if we stopped and searched everybody, all our police would spend all their time stopping and searching people to no particular end. Stop and search has to be evidence-based and targeted, and that is what the police are doing. We support that. We want more intelligence-led stop and search. It is a good thing, but anyone who thinks that it is the only answer misunderstands the problem. We have to prevent crime from happening in the first place, as well as to tackle the perpetrators who are already involved and make sure we address reoffending. Doing one intervention without all the rest is not going to work, which is why our action plan involves multiple Government Departments, lots of funding, and lots of support from the Prime Minister down.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Sarah Jones and Sarah Pochin

Monday 23rd March 2026 Commons Chamber

[Sarah Jones]

This Government fund violence reduction units. Where we do not have them, our police and crime commissioners make sure that we are funding a raft of organisations that know what is happening on the ground, what the right interventions are, and how we can drag children out of crime and into making better choices. I see that in my constituency, and I know my hon. Friend sees it in hers. As she knows, those community leaders are the bedrock, and we must support them as much as we can.

[Sarah Pochin (Runcorn and Helsby) (Reform)]

T10.   Is the Home Secretary comfortable with the reality that, as a woman, she could not stand and pray alongside the Mayor of London at last week’s event in Trafalgar Square?

Police Reform

Debate between Sarah Jones and Sarah Pochin

Thursday 13th November 2025 Commons Chamber

[Sarah Jones]

In 2017, new powers were introduced to enable police and crime commissioners to have a fire-related role. We have the Minister responsible for fire, my hon. Friend the Member for Chester North and Neston (Samantha Dixon), on the Front Bench right now. The transition to the new structures will relate to fire as well as policing; the role will move to the new police boards.

[Sarah Pochin (Runcorn and Helsby) (Reform)]

While we Reform Members welcome the abolition of police and crime commissioners, will the Minister explain how these reforms will deliver clearer accountability for policing, particularly in areas like my constituency, where a strategic policing board is likely to be necessary, given that the PCC in Cheshire has proved to be one of the starkest examples of failure? He has achieved no meaningful improvement when it comes to crime or policing, and devotes his time to political campaigning.

[Sarah Jones]

I repeat that I am not here today to criticise the PCCs; I think that they have done a really good job. It is the role and the elected function that is not working. The hon. Member is right to ask about accountability. It is incredibly important we have the right accountability for our police, who have very significant powers and do an incredibly important job keeping people safe. Our expectation is that in the mayoral model, accountability will lie with the mayor; in the board model, the leaders of the council will provide the accountability. We are also looking at how accountability is delivered at national level—this will be in a White Paper that will come out—so that we know exactly what our police are doing and how they are doing it, and so that the inspection regime is beefed up.