Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment she has made of the adequacy of school initiatives in preventing (a) knife crime and (b) youth violence.

Keeping children safe is a top priority for this government. The department works closely with the Home Office to deliver better and safer outcomes for children and young people through the Opportunity and Safer Streets Missions.

Education plays a vital role in helping children lead safe, fulfilling lives and can act as a protective factor for those who are vulnerable. Statutory guidance, including ‘Working together to safeguard children’ and ‘Keeping children safe in education’ sets out the safeguarding duties and responsibilities of education settings. This spans action taken within schools, such as through effective whole-school behaviour policies and pastoral support provision, through to the role of schools within multi-agency safeguarding arrangements, and action taken by schools to escalate concerns about children to local authority services.

The department encourages and supports all schools to adopt effective, evidence-based approaches to preventing violence, working in close partnership with the Youth Endowment Fund to promote and embed best practice in violence prevention across the education sector.

Updated relationships, sex and health education guidance was published in July 2025, including new content focused on staying safe from all forms of violence, and skills to help children avoid involvement in conflict and violence, such as knife crime. For those children who need more focused prevention support, the department is building on the insights from its evaluated school-based support, attend, fulfil, exceed taskforces and Alternative Provision Specialist Taskforces programmes, working to ensure all schools can benefit from these insights.