My Lords, once again, I find myself in the rather scary position of seeing some considerable merit in the suggestion of a Lib Dem Peer, the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones. I will also comment on the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Hampton, who also advocated for controls on knives.

There is merit in having a review, or otherwise, of the measures in the Bill. However, I would go further and say that we probably need a wide-ranging review of all the measures successive Governments have taken to try to crack down on knife crime as, despite all our efforts, we cannot manage to do it. I was the Home Office Minister who took through the Offensive Weapons Act 1996, followed up the next year by the Knives Act 1997. That was building on Section 139 of the Criminal Justice Act 1998.

I am certain I said then that these new powers would make a huge difference in reducing knife crime, and every Labour and Conservative Government since then have said the same thing as we constantly try to close this stable door, since the bad guys can move faster than we can. We had never heard of zombie knives 20 years ago and, apart from the horrendous murder of PC Blakelock at Broadwater Farm in 1985, machete attacks were rare, not ubiquitous as they are now.

In the Bill, we are trying to crack down on online sales, and I totally support that, but we need to have a good, hard look at how we can slow down and bend the curve on knife crime. I have some pretty tough amendments to follow in another group, relating to machetes, because we have to hit really hard those who attack in the streets using machetes or zombie knives. However, without a concerted effort by lawful authorities, we will not succeed in bending the curve.

When I recently bought a new paring knife, it was wrapped in tough, bulletproof plastic and required one of my trusty old Stanley knives to open it. The girl at the checkout summoned a supervisor before she would sell it to me. I had initially thought that it was because I looked under 18, but it was to check whether the girl had the authority to sell it. I must say to the noble Lord, I am amateur cook: try using a paring knife to cut a Savoy cabbage or a lettuce, or to strip chicken meat off the bone.

No matter what restrictions we impose, the bad guys will find ways around them. They will get their hands on kitchen knives, or seven or nine-inch blades. The noble Lord, Lord Hampton, is right that a round-ended, blunt-ended knife will not cut through clothing, but it will not cut through an avocado, either. We would be trying to impose unnecessary restrictions, as my noble friend said from the front bench. It is too excessive.

In the year ending March 2024, there were around 50,000 offences involving a knife or sharp instrument recorded by the police in England and Wales. Police operations and amnesties regularly remove thousands of knives from the streets. In 2006, an amnesty collected 90,000 knives and, a couple of years ago, 60,000 knives were collected from the streets of England and Wales. However, it is estimated that there are 400,000 kitchen knives in circulation. They would not be handed in in any amnesty if the proposals from the noble Lord, Lord Hampton, went through—and I bet none of those 400,000 knives is like my paring knife.

This is no criticism whatever of the current Government, nor past ones I served in or supported; none of us has the answer to knife crime. Yes, we are tightening things up in the Bill, as we have done in every other Bill since I have been in Parliament over the last 40 years, but we still do not have the answer. Therefore, there might be some merit in some sort of review. We might not get the answers we want, but at least we might be asking the right questions.