Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what recent assessment his Department has made of potential links between serious violence, in particular knife crime, and school exclusions.

In April 2018 the Government published the Serious Violence Strategy which sets out our analysis of the risk and protective factors for involvement in serious violence. The evidence in the Strategy showed that being in care and school exclusions are markers for increased risk of both victimisation and perpetration of serious violence.

The Home Office and Department for Education continue to work together to deliver the commitment in the strategy to consider support for pupils at risk of exclusion as well as for those who have been excluded, to reduce the risk of them being drawn into crime and associated pathways.