---

Knife Crime

Can I start by saying that I am very sorry that somebody from the Tea Room was attacked last week? I had not been aware of that, and I will find out more about it. I am also very sorry to hear about the hon. Lady’s husband.

The growing narrative around London is just wrong. It has been debunked by lots of sensible people in lots of ways, so I will not go into all the details, but we know that the Mayor of London has invested more in policing than at any time before. Stop and search is an important tool, and the Mayor of London and the police in London use it; across the country, there are about 14,000 searches per year where a weapon is found, which is a high number. Stop and search is used effectively, and its use actually went down every year when Boris Johnson was Mayor of London. It is better to use effective stop and search, which is what we are doing—it is an important tool. Only last week, the Mayor of London announced that he is going to be opening a youth club in every single London borough, which will help to make sure that young people have somewhere to go and something to do. I hope the hon. Lady welcomes that.