Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps she is taking to reduce knife crime.

Tackling knife crime is a priority for the Government. Our Modern Crime Prevention Strategy published in March 2016 set out a range of measures to strengthen our response to knife crime. Our work to tackle knife crime is centred on four key strands – working with the police on operations and enforcement, work on legislative framework, work with retailers on responsible sales, and early intervention and prevention.

We are taking firm action including encouraging police forces to undertake a series of coordinated national weeks of action to tackle knife crime under Operation Sceptre. The operation includes targeting habitual knife carriers, weapon sweeps, test purchases of knives from identified retailers, and the use of surrender bins. The Home Office hosted a national briefing event for police forces on Operation Sceptre on 14 June and a record twenty nine police forces are expected to be involved in the next week of action planned for mid July.

In 2016, we also legislated to ban the sale and importation of “zombie knives”. We have agreed a set of commitments with major retailers to prevent the underage sales of knives more generally in their stores and online. The agreement also covers staff training and displays and packaging. Tesco, eBay UK, Lidl UK, Amazon UK, Wilko, Argos, Asda, Poundland, Morrisons, Sainsbury’s, John Lewis and Waitrose have all signed up to the principles. They have since been joined by Boots, the Co-op, B&Q, Aldi and TKMaxx. We also work with Crimestoppers to refresh their Fearless website and are supporting the development of youth violence intervention projects in hospital accident and emergency departments outside London.