Question to the Home Office:

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

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 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. A record thirty-two police forces took part in the latest week of action in July and further weeks of action will take place later this Autumn.

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.

We are keeping the legislative framework under review and on 18 July 2017, the Government announced its intention to consult on new offences to tackle knife crime. The proposals include placing restrictions on the online sale of knives and creating a new offence of possession of an offensive or dangerous weapon in a private place. .

Alongside the consultation on the legislative measures we are also taking forward a range of other actions. These include a national prevention campaign to be launched in the Autumn, supporting youth violence intervention and prevention work in hospital emergency departments, and launching an anti-knife community fund to support communities to respond to this issue.