Schools: Knives

Home Office written question – answered at on 2 February 2018.

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Photo of Sarah Jones Sarah Jones Labour, Croydon Central

To ask the Minister for the Home Office, with reference to the Department for Education's consultation, Keeping children safe in education; proposed revisions, launched on 14 December 2017, what plans she has to review her Department's guidance, Advice to schools and colleges on gangs and youth violence, published on 2 August 2013 in respect of knife offences on school premises.

Photo of Victoria Atkins Victoria Atkins The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, Minister for Women

The Home Office is working with the Department for Education to make clear in the updated guidance Keeping Children Safe in Education the risks of carrying knives and raise awareness about this issue among education practitioners.

We have awarded £765,000 from the new anti-knife crime community fund launched in October 2017 to support local communities to tackle knife crime, including supporting knife crime awareness sessions delivered in schools. In addition, we continue to encourage police forces to take part in the anti-knife crime weeks of action under Operation Sceptre and as part of this action police forces have delivered education sessions in schools.

We have also launched a consultation on new laws on offensive weapons. The consultation was closed on 9 December and we are now considering the responses. The proposals included legislation to extend the knife possession offence currently applying to schools to education institutions other than schools.

In July 2017 we published guidance to help frontline practitioners, including education professionals, identify victims of county lines and make appropriate referrals. We keep our guidance under review and we will consider whether our ‘Advice to Schools and Colleges on Gangs and Youth Violence’, which was revised in 2015 to adapt it to primary schools, needs to be updated.

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