"No apology letters - carrying a knife will carry consequences” – Starmer unveils bold agenda to protect young people and stamp out knife crime as figures reveal almost half of knife possession cases lead to NFA
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Keir Starmer will today [Thursday] unveil a new agenda to tackle
knife crime, promising “real support” to young people and families
worried about crime, while warning that anyone carrying or using a
knife will face “real consequences” with a Labour government.
Informed by his experience as Director of Public Prosecutions, the
Labour leader is setting out bold plans to tackle Britain’s knife
crime epidemic, including a major new youth programme –
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Keir Starmer will today [Thursday] unveil a new agenda to tackle knife crime, promising “real support” to young people and families worried about crime, while warning that anyone carrying or using a knife will face “real consequences” with a Labour government. Informed by his experience as Director of Public Prosecutions, the Labour leader is setting out bold plans to tackle Britain’s knife crime epidemic, including a major new youth programme – Young Futures – to help prevent violent crime. Alongside Labour’s pledge to urgently crackdown on the availability of machetes and zombie-style knives, Starmer will announce guaranteed interventions and tough sanctions for those found carrying knives. Against a backdrop of damning statistics showing that despite total knife crime soaring 70 per cent since 2015, almost half of all knife possession cases recorded by police last year led to No Further Action, Starmer will vow to end the empty warnings and apology letters for knife possession – ‘if you carry a knife, you’ll carry the consequences.’ The former Chief Prosecutor is promising that with a Labour government, any young person caught with a knife will have a bespoke action plan to prevent reoffending, which could include sanctions such as curfews, tagging, or behavioural contracts - to run alongside coordinated parental and education interventions. Starmer will call out existing rules that mean young people carrying knives can escape any further sanction or behaviour requirement simply by writing an apology letter. In the second leg of the party’s Missions tour, alongside Shadow Home Secretary, Yvette Cooper, Keir Starmer will announce Labour’s radical youth prevention programme as part of Labour’s mission for safer streets. Echoing the last Labour government’s transformative prevention programme, SureStart, and building on Starmer’s pledge to reform the delivery of public services, Young Futures will require coordination of local services to identify the young people most at risk of knife crime and prevent them ever picking up a knife. The programme will draw on up to £100 million a year to fund new youth workers and mental health hubs in every community and youth workers in A&E and mentors in pupil referral units. Labour’s interventionist programme addresses calls from youth workers, campaigners and legal experts that merely responding to youth crime is wholly inadequate and that prevention is key to reversing what Keir Starmer is calling a ‘terrifying surge’ in people ‘throwing away their life chances.’ Speaking with young people in Milton Keynes, Keir Starmer, Leader of the Labour Party, said: “Too many young people are being drawn into squandering their life chances by getting involved in crime. A government that I lead won’t think we can press release away soaring youth crime. “No more apology letters, no more weak warnings. If you carry a knife, you’ll carry the consequences. But this is not just about sanctions once the choices have been made. I saw as Chief Prosecutor the power of prevention - lives are being lost to knife crime because Tory governments don’t. “Labour will turn this around. We will give young people real support to achieve their potential and stay on track, but flout that chance, and they’ll feel the full force of the law.” Ends Notes:
Young Futures:
Labour’s new Young Futures programme will draw on up to £100
million a year, based on combining existing commitments to fund
youth hubs with mental health staff and youth workers in every
community paid for by ending tax breaks for private schools, and
mentors in pupil referral units and youth workers in A&E paid
for by full cost recovery for gun licensing, and a programme of
public sector reform to deliver:
Tough consequences for carrying a knife:
A Labour government will end the empty warnings and apology
letters for knife possession, guaranteeing sanctions and serious
interventions for young people carrying knives:
Tough new laws to restrict the sale of knives:
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