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Knife Crime

It is a pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Leicester, East (Keith Vaz), who leads the Home Affairs Committee so admirably. I regret the necessity for this debate, as, I am sure, do all other Members, but it is necessary because of the prevalence of knife crime in some of our communities, particularly in London. I should like to start by expressing my condolences to the families and friends of the latest victims of stabbings—Arsema Dawit and Pat Regan—as well as to the Navaneethan family, residents of Carshalton in my constituency, two of whose children died at the weekend. Clearly, those families will never recover fully from those tragedies. I enthusiastically endorse the Minister's comments about how the overwhelming majority of young people play a very positive role in society. Like many other Members, I have a steady stream of young people coming from local schools, colleges and universities doing internships or work experience, sometimes in their summer holidays, and they all make a fantastic contribution. Statistically speaking, it is probably true to say that there is not yet an epidemic of knife crime, but among young people something is clearly amiss. The number of teenagers gunned down, stabbed or beaten to death in the capital has risen from 15 in 2005 and, if current trends continue, could top 35 in 2008. The Government's response has included some very positive measures, including increasing the maximum term from two to four years—although, as a senior police officer said to me a few days ago, what is most important is for young people to know that they risk being caught carrying the knife, not necessarily to know about the term. As regards the Prime Minister's announcement of the presumption of prosecution for people of 16 years or older, could the Minister tell us what assessment has been made of the impact of that in terms of police and court time, and what safeguards will be put in place for innocent young people? Let me illustrate that with an example. A couple of years ago, an American friend of mine in his early 20s came to visit me in Westminster. He was carrying a lock knife. That is not illegal in the US, but when he came here he could have been caught under that legislation. He had no intention of using it, and if he had done he would not have chosen to carry it into Parliament. We need to hear more from the Minister about that. Obviously, intelligence-led stop and search is essential, and I support Operation Blunt 2, which has worked well in my constituency—four arrests followed an operation a couple of days ago in Sutton—and the use of metal-scanning arches. Catching those carrying knives is just part of the solution. A bigger part of the solution, which I hope the Minister will have more time to talk about when he responds because his opening speech was very much about enforcement, is finding out why young people are carrying knives in the first place, what is effective in preventing them from doing so, and whether more can be done to educate them better about the lethal nature of knives. This last point was put to me by a senior police officer. He did not want to overemphasise it, but he felt that some young people were using knives not knowing that the consequences could be fatal if, for instance, they stabbed someone in the leg. The publicity campaign is clearly part of educating young people better. We also need to consider what is being done to reassure young people that police are out and about in areas of highest risk. I hope that the Minister will also be able to give us an update on the progress of the roll-out of the youth centres that will be delivered as part of the dormant funds proposal. We have heard a lot about that, but so far I have not seen much youth work that has been paid for by that route. My final point concerns the most recent victim of youth crime, Arsema Dawit. I shall not comment on her case, but reports suggest that she was the victim of a crime involving a stalker. Partly prompted by an officer who has made this suggestion, I would like to ask the Minister about the work being done by the Met and other forces to review stalker cases, particularly those involving young people. How many cases are being reviewed and when does the Minister expect those reviews to be completed? We need to know that that matter is being examined fully. We all agree that we cannot stand idly by while knife crime takes the lives of our young people. We need more research into the causes of knife crime, better deterrents, better detection, more enforcement and tougher sentences. The Government will have our support as they struggle to control the rise in these fatal attacks.