PARLIAMENTARY WRITTEN QUESTION
Knives: Crime (18 April 2019)

Government Departments are working quickly to tackle knife crime and the CPS continues to prosecute knife crime robustly. Charges for offensive weapons and possession of a bladed article increased to 27,525 in 2017/18, compared with 25,993 in 2016/17.

I attended the Serious Youth Violence Summit hosted by the Prime Minister in April to discuss this serious issue. Following the Summit, cross-government work will now be overseen and driven forward by the new Serious Violence Strategy Implementation Taskforce chaired by the Prime Minister. The Attorney General will be a member of this Taskforce, and both he and I regularly engage with discussions about effectively tackling knife crime.