Tag: knife crime

Bishop of Southwell and Nottingham asks about access to role models for young men

The Bishop of Southwell and Nottingham asked a question on tailoring school PSHE programmes to facilitate opportunities for young men to access positive role models on 6th May 2025 , during a discussion on tackling knife crime:

The Lord Bishop of Southwell and Nottingham: My Lords, given the importance of young men needing positive role models in their lives, and of these being people they actually know and can talk to consistently, have His Majesty’s Government considered—as part of their Young Futures programme—how the PSHE curriculum in schools can be tailored more to facilitating these opportunities, taking note particularly of the excellent work of charities such as Kick, which are providing more and more mentors to primary and secondary schools?

Continue reading “Bishop of Southwell and Nottingham asks about access to role models for young men”

Bishop of Southwark asks about alternative methods to combat knife crime

The Bishop of Southwark asked a question on alternative approaches to tackling knife crime on 1st April 2025, during a discussion on the effectiveness of the stop and search policy:

The Lord Bishop of Southwark: Can the Minister outline whether more activity is possible on prevention and a public health approach to knife crime, as has been attempted in Glasgow? Examples include schools programmes and after-school youth provision—programmes that tackle the multivalent factors that can lead to violence.

Continue reading “Bishop of Southwark asks about alternative methods to combat knife crime”

Online Safety Bill: Bishop of Oxford supports amendments on online harms

On 27th April 2023, the Bishop of Oxford spoke in committee in support of amendments to the Online Safety Bill that would expand the definition of online harms to children to cover a broader spectrum of potential risk:

The Lord Bishop of Oxford: My Lords, I support Amendments 20, 93 and 123, in my name and those of the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, and the noble Lords, Lord Bethell and Lord Stevenson. I also support Amendment 74 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron. I pay tribute to the courage of all noble Lords and their teams, and of the Minister and the Bill team, for their work on this part of the Bill. This work involves the courage to dare to look at some very difficult material that, sadly, shapes the everyday life of too many young people. This group of amendments is part of a package of measures to strengthen the protections for children in the Bill by introducing a new schedule of harms to children and plugging a chronological gap between Part 3 and Part 5 services, on when protection from pornography comes into effect.

Every so often in these debates, we have been reminded of the connection with real lives and people. Yesterday evening, I spent some time speaking on the telephone with Amanda and Stuart Stephens, the mum and dad of Olly Stephens, who lived in Reading, which is part of the diocese of Oxford. Noble Lords will remember that Olly was tragically murdered, aged 13, in a park near his home, by teenagers of a similar age. Social media played a significant part in the investigation and in the lives of Olly and his friends—specifically, social media posts normalising knife crime and violence, with such a deeply tragic outcome.

Continue reading “Online Safety Bill: Bishop of Oxford supports amendments on online harms”

Bishop of St Albans asks about government efforts to reduce knife crime

The Bishop of St Albans received the following written answer on 23rd February 2023:

The Lord Bishop of St Albans asked His Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to reduce incidences of knife crime against shop workers.

Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con): The Home Office has provided £130m this financial year (22/23) to tackle and drive down serious violence, including funding for Violence Reduction Units (VRUs) and the Home Office ‘Grip’ programme.

We have introduced legislation to tackle these crimes. Serious Violence Reduction Orders (SVROs) are new court orders introduced via the Police Crime Sentencing and Courts Act 2022 that will give the police the power to stop and search adults already convicted of knife or offensive weapons offences. We will pilot SVROs in four police force areas to build an understanding of the impact and effectiveness of the new orders before making a decision on whether we should introduce them nationally.

Continue reading “Bishop of St Albans asks about government efforts to reduce knife crime”

Bishop of St Albans asks about knife crime in Hertfordshire

The Bishop of St Albans received the following written answer on 22nd February 2023:

The Lord Bishop of St Albans asked His Majesty’s Government how many instances of knife crime occurred in Hertfordshire in (1) 2022, (2) 2021, (3) 2020, and (4) 2019.

Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con): The information requested falls under the remit of the UK Statistics Authority.

A response to the noble Lord Bishop’s Parliamentary Question of 9 February is attached.

Continue reading “Bishop of St Albans asks about knife crime in Hertfordshire”

Bishop of St Albans speaks about knife crime

On 20th October 2022, the House of Lords debated a motion to take note on Violent Crime, Gang Activity and Burglaries. The Bishop of St Albans spoke in the debate, with particular reference to knife crime:

The Lord Bishop of St Albans: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Snape, not only for obtaining this timely debate but for his introduction to it. I declare my interest as a vice-president of the Local Government Association.

I will focus on just one specific area of this huge topic, which I imagine many of us will want to address: knife crime. The diocese I serve encompasses Hertfordshire and Bedfordshire; in Bedfordshire, knife crime has increased by a third since 2010. There are various estimates about the increases over the last year, but it is something in the region of 10% across our nation. There was a fall during the lockdowns, but we are now rapidly reaching the same levels as pre Covid and the projections are stark—so it is deeply worrying.

It is engendering huge levels of fear: as I go around talking to people, many of the elderly are fearful of their houses being broken into, although they are statistically unlikely to be the victims of knife crime. However, when you go into schools, it is a topic of which many young children are terrified, not least as they make their way to and from school. Hospitals are dealing with soaring numbers of stab victims: 4,112 cases were recorded last year, a 2% increase on the previous year. Of those, 855 were in London, 405 in the West Midlands, 310 in Greater Manchester, 240 in West Yorkshire hospitals, 175 in South Yorkshire and 140 in Merseyside. In other words, this is not just a case of stories being particularly highly reported in the papers of London; it is something that affects areas—particularly urban but even sometimes rural—across our country. It is particularly concerning that a recent report suggests that only one in six crimes involving a knife in London has been solved by the police over the last two years.

Continue reading “Bishop of St Albans speaks about knife crime”

Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill: Bishop of Manchester speaks on violence reduction and on regulations on noise from protests

On 22nd March 2022, the House of Lords debated Commons amendments to the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill. The Bishop of Manchester spoke twice in the debate, first voicing his concerns regarding serious violence reduction orders:

My Lords, I echo the thoughts that the noble Lord, Lord Young, has just shared. I declare my interest as chair of the Manchester Homelessness Partnership board and as co-chair of the national police ethics committee, because I also wish to speak to the Motion regarding serious violence reduction orders.

I support the Vagrancy Act repeal, as I know my right reverend and most reverend friends on these Benches do, and have sought to see that included in previous Bills. I am grateful that it is now on track and I look forward to working with Ministers and others to ensure that we avoid any unintended consequences and do not simply recreate the old Act in more modern language.

Continue reading “Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill: Bishop of Manchester speaks on violence reduction and on regulations on noise from protests”

Votes: Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill

On 10th January 2022, the House of Lords debated the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill in the Report stage. Votes were held on amendments to the Bill, in which Bishops took part.

Continue reading “Votes: Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill”

Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill: Bishop of Gloucester raises issue of threats to vulnerable women and girls

On 10th January 2022, the House of Lords debated amendments to the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill. The Bishop of Gloucester raised the issue of vulnerable women being caught in “joint enterprise” scenarios involving weapons and given prison sentences, and supported amendments which would address this:

The Lord Bishop of Gloucester: My Lords, I rise to support in particular Amendments 90H, 90J, 90K and 90L. As has been said, they are critical to ensuring that more vulnerable women are not drawn into the criminal justice system through the de facto joint enterprise element of SVROs. Probably like other noble Lords, I was shocked to read the briefing from Agenda, which states that analysis of

“109 joint enterprise cases involving women and girls”

shows that

“there was not a single case in which women and girls had handled a weapon; in 90% of cases they engaged in no violence at all; and in half of the cases they were not even present at the scene of the crime.”

Continue reading “Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill: Bishop of Gloucester raises issue of threats to vulnerable women and girls”

Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill: Bishop of Manchester speaks in favour of amendments on Serious Violence Reduction Orders

On 10th January 2022, the House of Lords debated the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill in the fourth day of the report stage. The Bishop of Manchester spoke in support of a group of amendments relating to the implementation of Serious Violence Reduction Orders (SVROs):

The Lord Bishop of Manchester: My Lords, I support Amendments 90H, 90J, 95A, 95B and 95C, to which I have added my name. I also signal my support for other amendments in this group which also seek to control more tightly how serious violence reduction orders will operate. I draw your Lordships’ attention to my work on policing ethics, both for Greater Manchester Police and for the National Police Chiefs’ Council, as set out in the register of interests.

As the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, has indicated, Amendment 90H seeks to ensure that an SVRO can be applied only when a bladed article or offensive weapon is used to commit an offence, not simply when such an item happens to be present and in the possession of the defendant. As the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, has indicated, as presently drafted, the Bill requires no substantive link between the weapon and the offence. An individual could, for example, commit a road traffic offence while driving home from a church picnic, with their used cutlery on the passenger seat next to them, and the prosecution could ask for an SVRO.

Continue reading “Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill: Bishop of Manchester speaks in favour of amendments on Serious Violence Reduction Orders”