Clause 34 - Sale etc. of knives and other weapons
Violent Crime Reduction Bill
5:45 pm
Lynne Featherstone (Shadow Minister, Home Affairs; Hornsey and Wood Green, Liberal Democrat)
The lead amendment was tabled to establish the Government’s thinking on the clause. We strongly support the intention to strengthen the restrictions and prohibitions on knives. The increase in knife crime and the number of people turning to knives as it becomes more difficult to use guns for crime is concerning. Only last weekend in Birmingham, tragically, someone was murdered with a knife and someone with a gun. I do not make a distinction—death is death—and I very much welcome the clause. However, we are concerned as to how it will work. How can the law on restricting sales to under-18s be enforced? There is a difficulty with the logic that one can get married at 16, yet not be able to buy a knife for the kitchen until one is 18. The Police Federation says that there is no safe way of policing the measure unless the police stand outside virtually every store that sells knives. Perhaps there should be a specification or description of prohibited knives to make policing a realistic prospect.
The Police Federation is also concerned that a person under the age of 18 may ask a third party to buy them a knife. Should there be an offence of giving a knife to someone who is under 18, or of accepting a knife as a present from an older person? Will that put people in the predicament of having to decide whether that person is responsible? Those are our concerns about the clause. I reiterate that we totally support the idea of raising the age to 18, but are unsure how the Government propose to make the measure work.
Amendment No. 159 raises the re-enactment issue again. People who take part in battle re-enactments and veterans’ fairs tell me that they are not just a hobby, but are educational, and they believe that they should be exempted. Surely, the Government do not intend hinder such events.