Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether her Department has made an assessment of the potential correlation between levels of knife crime in London and the easing of covid-19 restrictions in May 2021.

This government is committed to tackling the scourge of knife crime.

As covid-19 restrictions ease across the country, we are aware that there may be a rise in serious violence. We are closely monitoring the latest data and working with local partners and the police to ensure we are able to respond quickly to any changes in the situation. However, the very latest data from the Metropolitan Police Dashboard shows that the number of knife crime and gun crime incidents in April 2021 remained below the 2-year average.

We are taking a number of steps to tackle knife crime in London, including:

• Investing £21m in the London Violence Reduction Unit, which brings together key partners to tackle the root causes of violence;
• Investing in a targeted law enforcement response, including through £42m for the Met police to operate hotspot policing;
• Investing in early intervention through our £200m 10 year Youth Endowment Fund, which has provided 28 grants to date to the London area.

Alongside this, our Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill will place a duty on public sector bodies to take a joined up approach to addressing serious violence as well as introduce Serious Violence Reduction Orders, which give the police the authority to stop and search known weapons carriers. We will also be piloting Knife Crime Prevention Orders (KCPO) which will help prevent further knife offending and divert those at risk away from being involved in knife crime. The KCPO Pilot will commence in July 2021 across the whole of the Metropolitan Area.