Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps his Department is taking to tackle the rise in fatal knife related incidents in Bournemouth East constituency.

The Government is committed to ensuring that the police have the resources they need to tackle violent crime. That is why I have recently confirmed Dorset’s police funding settlement of £179.8 million in 2024/25, an increase of up to £11.1 million when compared to 2023/24. I am also pleased to have recently approved, on an exceptional basis, an additional £600 thousand in 23/24 to enable the police to respond recent exceptional policing demand arising in Bournemouth.

We have also increased the number of police officers through the Police Uplift Programme and as of 31 March 2023, 20,947 additional officers have been recruited in England and Wales delivering on the manifesto commitment of 20,000 more police officers by the end of March 2023. As of 31 March 2023, Dorset has recruited 174 additional uplift officers against a total three-year allocation of 166 officers and at this time there were 1,441 police officers in Dorset, a total growth of 174 additional officers against the baseline (1,267) at the start of the Police Uplift Programme.

We keep all relevant legislation under review in the interests of public safety and we recently consulted on new legislative proposals to tackle knife crime and published the government response on 30 August 2023. As a result, in the Criminal Justice Bill, we have introduced provisions to:

o Provide more powers for police to seize knives held in private that could be used in crimes .

o Increase the maximum penalty for the offences of selling prohibited weapons and selling knives to under 18s.

o Create a new offence of possessing an article with blade or point or offensive weapon with intent to use unlawful violence or cause someone to fear unlawful violence.

And via secondary legislation we will introduce, in the next few weeks, a new ban on zombie-style machetes and knives that seem to appeal who those who want to use them as weapons.

In addition, we have introduced the Serious Violence Duty, which requires relevant agencies to work in partnership to tackle violence. Funding has also been provided to support implementation of the duty (for Dorset amounting to £292 thousand in the 23/24, with funding continuing in 24/25).