Since 2019, the Home Office has provided over £43m of funding for a London Violence Reduction Unit (VRU) (including £9.5m this year) which is providing a multi-agency, preventative response designed to tackle the drivers of serious violence and knife crime. In addition, we have invested over £60m (including c.£8.9m this year) in \u2018hotspot policing\u2019 to boost the policing response to serious violence in London and provide high-visibility police patrols and problem-solving tactics in the streets and neighbourhoods most affected.<\/p>
VRUs are tasked with investing in evidence-based approaches designed to steer vulnerable young people away from involvement in violence. As part of this approach, the London VRU is funding local interventions in Enfield including an outreach and detached youth team which delivers after school activities and creative sessions, 1-1 holistic support for young people, mentoring sessions and sports sessions for children and young people. Alongside this, the policing hot spot response programme is targeting key locations in Enfield Town and Fore Street. In addition to additional visible police patrols, policing interventions delivered through this programme in Enfield have included work to prevent robberies of school pupils and work to target males who were assaulting sex workers.<\/p>
The government is also taking forward a programme of national activity to drive down knife crime. This includes recent consultation on new legislative proposals, including a ban of zombie-style knives and machetes. The government response was published on 30 August 2023. Following careful consideration of the responses to the consultation, a Statutory Instrument was laid in Parliament on 25 January 2024. Once the legislation has been approved by Parliament, a surrender scheme will be launched this summer to remove these items from our streets and once this has been completed, the manufacture, supply, sale and possession of zombie-style knives and machetes will be outlawed from 24 September 2024. This will cover face to face and online sales.<\/p>
Additionally, through the Criminal Justice Bill 2023, which is currently progressing through parliament, we are providing more powers for police to seize knives held in private that they believe will be used for unlawful violence, increasing the maximum penalty for the offences of selling prohibited weapons and selling knives to under 18s and creating a new offence of possessing an article with blade or point or an offensive weapon with intent to commit unlawful violence.<\/p>"} , "answeringMember" : {"_about" : "http://data.parliament.uk/members/4503", "label" : {"_value" : "Biography information for Chris Philp"} } , "answeringMemberConstituency" : {"_value" : "Croydon South"} , "answeringMemberPrinted" : {"_value" : "Chris Philp"} , "dateOfAnswer" : {"_value" : "2024-02-26", "_datatype" : "dateTime"} , "groupedQuestionUIN" : [{"_value" : "14414"} , {"_value" : "14416"} ], "isMinisterialCorrection" : {"_value" : "false", "_datatype" : "boolean"} , "questionFirstAnswered" : [{"_value" : "2024-02-26T16:54:46.64Z", "_datatype" : "dateTime"} ]} , "answeringDeptId" : {"_value" : "1"} , "answeringDeptShortName" : {"_value" : "Home Office"} , "answeringDeptSortName" : {"_value" : "Home Office"} , "date" : {"_value" : "2024-02-16", "_datatype" : "dateTime"} , "hansardHeading" : {"_value" : "Crimes of Violence: Greater London"} , "houseId" : {"_value" : "1"} , "legislature" : [{"_about" : "http://data.parliament.uk/terms/25259", "prefLabel" : {"_value" : "House of Commons"} } ], "questionText" : "To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps he is taking to help tackle violent assaults in (a) Enfield North Constituency, (b) the London Borough of Enfield and (c) London.", "registeredInterest" : {"_value" : "false", "_datatype" : "boolean"} , "tablingMember" : {"_about" : "http://data.parliament.uk/members/4822", "label" : {"_value" : "Biography information for Feryal Clark"} } , "tablingMemberConstituency" : {"_value" : "Enfield North"} , "tablingMemberPrinted" : [{"_value" : "Feryal Clark"} ], "uin" : "14417"} , {"_about" : "http://data.parliament.uk/resources/1504607", "AnsweringBody" : [{"_value" : "Home Office"} ], "answer" : {"_about" : "http://data.parliament.uk/resources/1504607/answer", "answerText" : {"_value" : "
As of June 2022, the latest data for hospital admissions for under 25s for assault with a sharp object \u2013 our primary metric for measuring serious violence \u2013 is down -17% in London compared to June 2021.<\/p>
This financial year we have provided £12.7m of funding to the London Violence Reduction Unit \u2013 which brings together key partners to tackle violence - and £8m of \u2018Grip\u2019 funding to support the Metropolitan Police Service\u2019s response to violence.<\/p>"} , "answeringMember" : {"_about" : "http://data.parliament.uk/members/4816", "label" : {"_value" : "Biography information for Miss Sarah Dines"} } , "answeringMemberConstituency" : {"_value" : "Derbyshire Dales"} , "answeringMemberPrinted" : {"_value" : "Miss Sarah Dines"} , "dateOfAnswer" : {"_value" : "2022-09-05", "_datatype" : "dateTime"} , "isMinisterialCorrection" : {"_value" : "false", "_datatype" : "boolean"} , "questionFirstAnswered" : [{"_value" : "2022-09-05T15:43:05.18Z", "_datatype" : "dateTime"} ]} , "answeringDeptId" : {"_value" : "1"} , "answeringDeptShortName" : {"_value" : "Home Office"} , "answeringDeptSortName" : {"_value" : "Home Office"} , "date" : {"_value" : "2022-09-05", "_datatype" : "dateTime"} , "hansardHeading" : {"_value" : "Crimes of Violence: Greater London"} , "houseId" : {"_value" : "1"} , "legislature" : [{"_about" : "http://data.parliament.uk/terms/25259", "prefLabel" : {"_value" : "House of Commons"} } ], "questionText" : "What recent assessment she has made of trends in the level of violent crime in London.", "registeredInterest" : {"_value" : "false", "_datatype" : "boolean"} , "tablingMember" : {"_about" : "http://data.parliament.uk/members/4798", "label" : {"_value" : "Biography information for Gareth Bacon"} } , "tablingMemberConstituency" : {"_value" : "Orpington"} , "tablingMemberPrinted" : [{"_value" : "Gareth Bacon"} ], "uin" : "901279"} ], "itemsPerPage" : 10, "page" : 0, "startIndex" : 1, "totalResults" : 2, "type" : ["http://purl.org/linked-data/api/vocab#ListEndpoint", "http://purl.org/linked-data/api/vocab#Page"]} }