Exclusive:
Andy Slaughter, who chairs the Commons Justice Committee, told The Mirror he is hopeful new rules can see sharp tips removed from kitchen knives following a call by actor Idris Elba
Lucy Powell comments on knife crime prevention
An influential Labour MP has backed Idris Elba’s call for sharp points to be removed from kitchen knives to save lives.
Andy Slaughter, who chairs the Commons Justice Committee, told The Mirror he has met with ministers and is hopeful the Government adopts the move. He admitted: “When I first heard it I thought it was mad, but now I’m a convert.”
Mr Slaughter said over the years he has become convinced the move, along with other measures, will impact on the UK’s knife crime epidemic. The Labour MP said: “I would compare it with restricting the sale of paracetamol. This saw a dramatic drop in suicides. If it’s not as easy to stab people to death anymore, the research shows those types of deaths and injuries will decrease.
“That doesn’t mean that you won’t get a kitchen knife causing a slashing injury but almost all the deaths that are caused by knife crime are caused by plunging a knife into somone.
“If you don’t have a pointed knife you can’t really do that.” And like Mr Elba he questioned whether most people need their kitchen knives to have sharp points. “If you think about it how often do you use the tip? You don’t.”
It comes after the Hollywood actor said during acclaimed documentary Idris Elba: Our Knife Crime Crisis: “Not all kitchen knives need to have a point on them. That sounds like a crazy thing to say, but you can still cut your food without the point on your knife, which is an innovative way to look at it.”
Mr Slaughter, who has been an MP since 2005, praised Mr Elba for raising the idea again. He said: “All the research is there, all the evidence is there.” And he said: “It’s clear they (the Home Office) are looking at it seriously.”
The committee chairman earlier told the Commons that sharp-pointed kitchen knives are “far and away the most common murder weapon in England and Wales”. He suggested that incentives could be offered to manufacturers and retailers who sell blunted knives, in order to make them harder to get hold of.
Mr Slaughter said respected surgeons, psychiatrists and academics agree. He said he has worked with retired judge Nic Madge, who grabbed headlines in 2018 by suggesting removing the sharp point from kitchen knives.
Mr Madge wrote: “Why do we need 8 or 10-inch kitchenknives with points? Butchers and fishmongers do, but how often, if at all, does a domestic chef usethe point of an 8 or 10-inch knife? Rarely.
” Yes, we need short pointed knives to fillet fish or piercemeat, but they are less likely to be lethal. Any knife can cause an injury, but slash wounds fromblades are rarely fatal.
“It is the points of long knives which cause life threatening and fatal injuries.” The Government has pledged to halve knife crime within a decade.
Lucy Powell, Labour’s leader of the Commons, told MPs: “I will absolutely join him (Mr Slaughter) in supporting the work of Idris Elba who I know met the Prime Minister in Downing Street as part of a coalition to tackle knife crime.”
She pointed out that the Government had banned zombie knives and was bringing forward a ban on ninja swords – as well as measures to divert young people away from violence.
The Mirror has contacted the Home Office for a comment.