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Knife Crime

Today's debate is called a topical debate, but knife crime has been growing year on year for at least the last two decades. Indeed, on 27 March last year, the Select Committee on Home Affairs had an inquiry on the matter, and the Minister gave evidence. That followed several months of asking the Committee to do it, and in February last year, I said to the then Prime Minister at Prime Minister's questions that the simple fact was that knife crime is three times more prevalent than gun crime. I challenged the Government to do something about it, and I truly welcome what the current Prime Minister is doing, but more should have been done a long time ago. In March last year, I presented to the House a petition of 5,000 signatures in the name of my constituent, Mrs. Ann Oakes-Odger, whose son Westley had been killed in Colchester in September 2005. I want to read out the petition because it summarises what the debate is about. It states:"““We are appalled by the number of people killed through the use of guns and knives; we are further appalled that although the number of people who are killed by knives is three times higher than those who are killed by guns, the legal system treats knife crimes less seriously than gun crimes.""The Petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urge the Home Secretary to introduce legislation so that the carrying of knives and the use of knives, and sentencing policies, are treated on the same terms as gun crimes.””—[Official Report, 21 March 2007; Vol. 458, c. 918.]" I do not believe that that happens now or that the Government's proposals will complete the journey, although they move in the right direction. My constituent said that, since she has begun talking to young people about the consequences of carrying knives, she has noticed this:"““They really have no idea. Television programmes and computer games which feature violent crime hardly ever show the devastation felt by victims' families. Young people don't realise so many lives will never be the same again.””" I would like to say much more, but I appreciate that others wish to speak, so I will draw my comments to a close as quickly as possible. Since my constituent's son was murdered while he was drawing cash from a machine outside a supermarket in the afternoon in broad daylight, she has taken her anti-knife campaign into the classroom. Her goal is for information on knives, guns, drugs and violent crime to become statutory in all the UK's secondary schools and later in primary schools. She has packaged the information into ““Westley's Weapons Awareness””, which has Home Office approval. Mr. Deputy Speaker, as a fellow Essex Member of Parliament, you will know that we are not considering just an inner-city problem. It is also to be found in the towns around the UK. In my town, Colchester, which is dubbed the safest town of its size, knife crime is increasing. In the year finishing at the end of January, 94 knife crimes occurred in the Colchester area. The figure for the previous year was 53. My plea to the Government in today's brief debate is to raise knife crime and its treatment to the same level as gun crime.