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Knife Crime

I am grateful to you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, and appreciate being able to catch your eye. Again, I apologise for arriving late. It is a pleasure and a privilege to participate in this important debate. However, I am sad that it is tacked on to the end of the week, on a day when there is a one-line Whip. I fear that the number of hon. Members in the Chamber reflects not the importance of the subject, but the timing. The subject is so important and emotive that perhaps we could hold an annual debate on knife crime. Let us have an annual report from the Government and the Select Committee outlining the progress that has been made in the previous year to tackle something that is high on everybody's agenda—the agenda of parliamentarians and legislators, of parents who are worried about their children and of young people, as hon. Members of all parties underlined so eloquently. May I request, through the Under-Secretary, regular feedback on progress on tackling the blight of knife crime, which has increased? Ideas have been presented for making knives blunt and removing them altogether, but we need to ask what encourages an individual to go out with a knife before even having a drink. A knife is perceived as a badge of honour, something that must be had to be part of the gang. It is seen as something that must be carried to feel proud and part of the pack. There is something very wrong when our society has moved to a point at which children grow up believing that that is right. Somewhere along the line, someone has failed in their duty to get across the following message to those youngsters as they grow up: ““This is wrong; this is not the way of the society that we want to live in; this is not the sort of community and safe environment that children should be growing up in,”” and which we perhaps enjoyed. Let me talk about the deterrent. Police powers are important. In Bournemouth and Dorset, one crime a week is committed involving a knife or a blade. That is unacceptable. The police require more powers to stop and search, and to ensure that the message gets through that those who carry such implements are likely to get caught. We must also talk about prevention, and this is where role models are important. I intervened on the right hon. Member for Leicester, East (Keith Vaz) and talked about role models. He said—I think in jest—that he could not participate in the online youth discussions. I would argue that older people have more of a responsibility to participate in the wider debate. Who are the role models we enjoyed when we were young, compared with today's role models? In a broken family, where the father figure has disappeared, where does little Johnny, aged five, six or seven, look for aspiration? Today's role models are different from those that I grew up with and absolutely different from those that my parents and grandparents grew up with. We lack those people in society who can guide those fragile and impressionable children in the way that they should be guided. That is why children end up joining gangs—so that they can feel part of a cohesive unit, because their family no longer provides one.