EXCLUSIVE: Prime Minister Keir Starmer said the extraordinary courage of families who have lost children to knife crime spurs him on – as he vowed to end the epidemic of violence
Some of the most heart-breaking moments in this job have been meeting parents whose children were victims of knife crime.
I think of Zoey McGill who showed me a video of her singing to her son as he lay dying in his hospital bed. I think of the times I’ve met Pooja Kanda whose son Ronan was killed by a ninja sword.
Their courage – and the courage of so many grieving parents like them – is extraordinary. From such devastation, they have found a remarkable strength to fight for change. They are determined to stop other parents going through what they have endured.
It’s something I feel very personally. Not just as a parent, trying to comprehend what they’ve been through, but because tackling crime and securing justice has been my life’s work. That’s why, as Prime Minister, I set the goal to halve knife crime in a decade as part of this government’s Plan for Change.
In the last year, we have already taken some important steps. I promised Pooja that we would ban the ninja swords that killed her son. And we’ve kept that promise: “Ronan’s Law” will become the law of the land.
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Throughout this month, we’re running a knife surrender scheme, with mobile vans collecting these knives off our streets. And from next month, it will be illegal to sell or own these vicious blades.
We’ve got tougher sentences for selling knives to young people and a new power for police to seize them. We’re cracking down on online sales that somehow, inexplicably, made buying a knife online as easy as buying a football.
And we’ve introduced sanctions for tech executives who fail to remove illegal knife crime content from their platforms. We’re ensuring there are real consequences for carrying a knife, and restoring proper community policing on the ground, with 13,000 more police officers in neighbourhood roles by the end of this Parliament.
But one area where we’ve got to go much further is how we prevent young people being drawn into knife crime in the first place. So this week the government is setting out plans for our Young Futures Hubs.
These hubs will bring together local services, mental health support, mentoring and careers guidance in the communities where young people live, ensuring no-one is left behind. There will be eight early adopters up and running later this year – focused in areas with high levels of knife crime – and fifty by the end of this Parliament.
We’ve also got to address the underlying causes that might make a young person pick up a weapon, whether they are being groomed by a gang or radicalised online. So our new Prevention Partnership Panels will bring together local authorities, police, schools and community groups to proactively spot when young people need help. And they will then refer them to support services much earlier, including to our new Young Futures Hubs.
Of course, government cannot do this alone. We have to come together as a country, politicians of all stripes, faith and community leaders, families of victims, tech companies and young people themselves.
It’s why last year at Downing Street, we launched our brilliant Coalition to Tackle Knife Crime – with charities, funders, families and experts uniting to get these knives off our streets and to restore youth services. And it’s why today I was pleased to be able to join The King and Idris Elba at a summit at St James’ Palace to help drive forward this vital work.
In politics, what matters is who you have in your mind when you’re taking decisions. I will always have people like Pooja and Zoey in my mind.
Their courage demands that, together, we act. And I am determined that we will do whatever it takes to end this epidemic of knife crime and build a country where families once again feel safe on our streets, and young people can look forward with hope and excitement about their future.
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