Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps he is taking to reduce violent crime in Yorkshire and the Humber.

In April 2018 the Government published the Serious Violence Strategy which sets out a comprehensive set of 61 commitments and actions we are taking to tackle violent crime. This included launching a £22m Early Intervention Youth Fund which is already supporting 29 projects in England and Wales, a national knife crime media campaign - #knife free; a new National County Lines Co-ordination Centre to tackle this violent and exploitative criminal ac-tivity; and the Offensive Weapons Bill to strengthen legislation on firearms, knives and corrosive substances.

On 2 October 2018 the Home Secretary announced further important measures including a consultation on new legal duty to support a multi-agency approach to preventing and tackling serious violence, a new long term £200 million Youth Endowment Fund, and an Independent Review of Drug Misuse.

Most recently, on 13 March the Chancellor of the Exchequer announced that an additional £100 million funding for serious violence in 2019/20 to help the police’s immediate response to the rise in serious knife crime, and also to support investment in Violence Reduction Units, bringing together a range of agencies including health, education, social services and others, to develop a multi-agency approach in preventing serious violence altogether. It is im-portant that we recognise that greater law enforcement on its own will not reduce serious violence and that we must continue to focus on prevention.

Specifically, in relation to Yorkshire and the Humber, we have awarded £2.7m from the Early Intervention Youth Fund to support different projects. We have also provided £127,521 through the anti-knife crime Community Fund in 2018/19 to seven local projects. Finally, all four police forces in the region took part in a national week of action to tackle knife crime, called Op-eration Sceptre, from 11-18 March 2019 along with all other police forces in England and Wales.