Halving knife crime remains a top priority for this Government. Since we have been in office knife homicides have fallen by 18% (to YE June 2025) and all knife crime down 5%. Knife assault has dropped by 6% and hospital admissions for assault with a sharp object among under 25s fell by 8%, and by 11% among over 25s.

Under this Government, nearly 60,000 knives have been removed from the streets of England and Wales through weapons surrender schemes, knives seized by Border Force and those recovered through County Lines Programme operations.

We have also introduced tougher knife control measures by banning zombie-style knives and machetes in September 2024 and ninja swords in August 2025. Ronan's Law tightens online knife sales with stricter age checks and penalties and we are introducing new powers to strengthen policing’s ability to seize, retain and destroy dangerous knives.

We know there is much more to do. Our approach to halving knife-crime is centred around smart enforcement, tough laws to remove dangerous weapons from our streets, and working to tackle the root causes of knife-crime through prevention through Violence Reduction Units and the new Young Futures Programme supporting those most at risk.

Tackling child criminal exploitation is an important strand of our mission to halve knife crime by reducing the risk of children being drawn into criminality and violence.

Through the County Lines Programme, we are targeting exploitative drug dealing gangs to break the organised crime groups behind the trade. Between July 2024 and June 2025, law enforcement activity through the County Lines Programme taskforces has resulted in more than 2,300 deal lines closed, 6,200 arrests (including the arrest and subsequent charge of over 1,100 deal line holders), 3,200 safeguarding referrals Aof children and vulnerable people, and 600 knives seized.

In addition, we are introducing a new offence of criminal exploitation of children in the Crime and Policing Bill to go after the gangs who are luring young people into violence and crime. As part of this legislation, we are also delivering new civil preventative orders to disrupt and prevent child criminal exploitation from occurring or re-occurring.

We are also going further to confront the wider criminal exploitation of children and vulnerable adults by introducing a new offence of ‘cuckooing’ and an offence to tackle coerced internal concealment. These three new offences will all work to tackle the interconnected and exploitative practices often used by criminal gangs, especially in county lines.

Moreover, we are also working to ensure that multiagency safeguarding partners are able to identify and respond appropriately to cases and concerns of all forms of child exploitation and abuse. This includes funding the Prevention Programme, delivered by The Children’s Society, to respond to all forms of child exploitation.

The Government has taken steps to reduce crime against animals. We have provided over £800,000 in additional funding to the National Wildlife Crime Unit and the National Rural Crime Unit to strengthen enforcement against offences such as poaching and illegal wildlife trade. There are strong penalties in place for offences committed against wildlife and kept animals. For kept animals we have Penalty Notices for Animal Health and Welfare Offences, giving enforcement bodies a proportionate tool for lower-level breaches. For serious animal welfare offences courts can now impose up to five years’ imprisonment for the most serious cruelty offences under the Animal Welfare (Sentencing) Act. These measures improve deterrence and ensure justice.

I refer the hon. Member to the response to UIN 77749.

Bike theft has a significant impact on individuals and for too long, many victims have felt not enough was being done to prevent their bikes being stolen or track down the thieves responsible.

As part of this Government’s Plan for Change, our Safer Streets Mission is determined to clamp down on the crime that damages our communities, and affects people’s lives, and tackling theft is a crucial part of that work.

The BTP-led National Cycle Crime Group, working with DfT, have set up Cycle Crime Reduction Partnerships across the country to coordinate regional enforcement activity to disrupt organised cycle theft.

We are also delivering on our commitment to restore and strengthen neighbourhood policing, recruiting 13,000 police personnel into neighbourhood roles, ensuring every community has a named officer to turn to, and doubling investment to £200 million to kickstart this.

The British Transport Police (BTP) are responsible for policing the London Underground and are committed to tackling crime on the network. As a devolved matter, the force works closely with TfL, the Mayor of London and rail industry partners to ensure passengers and rail staff feel safe.

Tackling violent crime is a priority for the British Transport Police (BTP) and they are committed to taking action to prevent the theft of personal property. BTP works closely with rail industry partners to ensure that passengers and rail staff feel safe on the network.

The BTP tackles violent crime through specialist policing capabilities designed specifically to prevent crime and harm on the railways and strong partnerships with Home Office forces. They utilise a range of policing techniques including overt and covert patrols at hot spot locations, regular high-visibility patrols across the network and use internal and external intelligence to assist in targeting locations.

To help prevent theft from passengers BTP officers conduct high-visibility patrols on trains, stations, and platforms, particularly in areas with higher crime rates. These patrols serve as a deterrent and allow officers to spot and address suspicious behaviour early on.

BTP frequently runs campaigns to remind passengers to stay vigilant and keep their belongings secure. This includes visible signage, announcements, and social media alerts with tips for safeguarding personal items.

The Government is committed to tackling theft of and from vehicles. The Crime Survey for England and Wales shows that neighbourhood crime is down 48% in the year ending September 2023 when compared to the year ending March 2010.

We are working closely with police and motor manufacturers through the National Vehicle Crime Working Group, chaired by ACC Jennifer Sims, the National Police Chiefs’ Council lead for vehicle crime, to take forward a programme of work to prevent and reduce vehicle crime nationally. This includes training police officers on methods used to steal vehicles, encouraging vehicle owners to secure their vehicles and working with industry to prevent theft. The Metropolitan Police Service is represented on the Working Group.

A network of vehicle crime leads has been established in every police force in England and Wales, ensuring forces share information about emerging trends in vehicle crime and are better able to tackle regional issues.

We are legislating through the Criminal Justice Bill to create two new offences where a person possesses, makes, adapts, supplies or offers to supply electronic devices where there are reasonable grounds to suspect they will be used in vehicle theft. The legislation will make it easier for police to prosecute criminals making and supplying these devices, as well as vehicle thieves.

Crime Survey for England and Wales data shows a 55% per cent fall in the level of domestic burglary when comparing the Crime Survey to year ending March 2023 with the year ending March 2010. This represents a fall from 917,000 incidents to 409,000 incidents. While this is clearly good news, the Government recognises the significant impact invasive crimes such as domestic burglary can have on individuals and the wider community, and we are committed to tackling and preventing these crimes.

In her open letter to police leaders in September 2022, the Home Secretary made it clear the public want to know the police will visit them when a home burglary has been committed. We therefore welcome the announcement made by the National Police Chiefs’ Council on the 8 June that all 43 police forces in England and Wales have been implementing this policy since March. We are working with police leaders to ensure forces are making their attendance data available to the public. https://news.npcc.police.uk/releases/police-now-attending-scene-of-every-home-burglary

The commitment to attend home burglaries is being supported by specific College of Policing good practice guidance on conducting residential burglary investigations. https://www.college.police.uk/guidance/residential-burglary Setting the standard in respect of the initial response and the subsequent investigation, the guidance sits alongside the College of Policing’s Authorised Professional Practice on Investigations.

As part of this back-to-basics approach, police forces across England and Wales have committed to pursue all ‘reasonable lines of enquiry’ where there is a reasonable chance it could lead them to catching a perpetrator and solving a crime. This commitment, announced on 28 August, has been worked up and agreed by the Home Office, in tandem with the National Police Chiefs’ Council and College of Policing. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/pursuing-all-reasonable-lines-of-enquiry-letter-to-police-leaders/pursuing-all-reasonable-lines-of-enquiry-letter-to-police-leaders

Furthermore, the Home Secretary has made it clear she expects forces to work with partners across the justice system to see more criminals charged and prosecuted.

To help ensure the police have the resources they need to fight crime and tackle anti-social behaviour, we have delivered on our commitment to recruit 20,000 additional police officers by the end of March this year. As of 31 March, a total of 20,947 additional officers had been recruited across England and Wales through the Police Uplift Programme, raising the number of police officers in England and Wales to 149,566, the highest number on record since comparable records began.

The report of Lord Farmer’s review, The Importance of Strengthening Prisoners Family Ties to Prevent Reoffending and Reduce Intergenerational Crime, commissioned in 2016, was published on 10 August 2017. It made 19 recommendations designed both to improve and to standardise the provision of family services across the prison estate in England and Wales.

All of the recommendations have been actioned and all but one linked to new training already embedded as part of our core business.

The changes we have implemented include the introduction of a secure social video calling service in all prisons; a Families Performance Metric for prisons; and additional HMPPS funding to strengthen prisons’ communication with prisoners’ families

We will not tolerate any violence against prison officers – staff must be able to expect a safe work environment. Prisoners who are violent towards staff will face the full consequences of their actions and will be dealt with swiftly and effectively. As of 28 June 2022 the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act has doubled the maximum penalty to up to two years’ imprisonment for those who assault emergency workers, including prison officers.

To protect staff and prisoners in very serious assaults, we are rolling out PAVA – a synthetic pepper spray – for use by prison officers in the adult male estate. Staff are able to use the PAVA spray where there is serious violence or an imminent or perceived risk of it.

We have rolled out a next generation Body Worn Video Camera solution which has increased the availability across public sector prisons from 6,000 to over 13,000 cameras, enabling every band 3-5 officer on shift to wear one. The cameras will provide high-quality evidence to support prosecutions against prisoners who commit assaults.

The Government recognises that fraudsters will use any means they can to trick people into handing over their hard-earned money. We recognise these crimes can have significant and devastating impacts on people’s lives, particularly the most vulnerable in society.

We know the best way to tackle these scams is to ensure the public have all the advice and support they need to detect these frauds and avoid them. This is why we have published guidance on GOV.UK containing easy-to-follow steps and useful resources.

As well as this, Action Fraud, the national reporting service for all victims of fraud and cybercrime, also regularly provide fraud alerts via their website including on common and newly seen fraud schemes: www.actionfraud.police.uk/news

Tackling fraud requires a unified and co-ordinated response from government, law enforcement and the private sector to better protect the public and businesses from fraud, reduce the impact of fraud on victims, and increase the disruption and prosecution of fraudsters which is why, we will publish a new strategy to address the threat of fraud this year.

The Government is committed to tackling vehicle-related thefts.

We are working closely with police and motor manufacturers through the National Vehicle Crime Working Group, chaired by the National Police Chiefs’ Council lead for vehicle crime, taking forward a programme of work to prevent and reduce theft of and from vehicles, which includes training of police officers on methods used to steal vehicles, encouraging vehicle owners to secure their vehicles and working with industry to address vulnerability in vehicle.

A network of vehicle crime leads has also been established, covering all forces, to ensure better sharing of information and intelligence.

The Government is funding a range of initiatives in London to reduce crime. These include money for a Violence Reduction Unit (VRU); targeted police activity to reduce serious violence; investment to prevent neighbourhood crime, violence against women and girls and anti-social behaviour through our Safer Streets Fund; and work to prevent drug related crime through Project ADDER (Addiction, Diversion, Disruption, Enforcement and Recovery).

These initiatives are in addition to the investment we have made available through the police uplift programme. The Metropolitan Police has recruited 3,109 additional uplift officers and the City of London has recruited 161 additional uplift officers.

As at 30 September 2022, there are 35,052 police officers (headcount) in the Metropolitan Police Service. This is the highest number of officers on record since comparable records began.

Fraudulent calls can have significant and devastating impacts on people’s lives, particularly the most vulnerable in society.

The Home Office and DCMS are in regular discussion with the telecommunication industry on ways to tackle fraud and protect the public.

The Government has taken a range of actions to reduce the number of these calls. For example, we have supported the National Trading Standards Scams Team to roll out call blocking devices to vulnerable people. DCMS have provided over £1 million in the last 3 years to National Trading Standards for distribution of call blocking devices to vulnerable people. This funding has helped to protect some of the most vulnerable in society from nuisance calls and scams.

However, the best way to tackle this problem is to try and identify the sources of these calls and stop them. We are encouraging the public to forward suspicious text messages to 7726 (which is free of charge) and continue to encourage anyone who has been a targeted by a scam to report it. Action Fraud is the central police reporting point for all victims of fraud and can be contacted by phone on 0300 123 2040 or through their website: http://www.actionfraud.police.uk/report_fraud.

If you have received a scam call, rather than text message, you can also log an information report on the site. Using the information collected from these reporting platforms, law enforcement partners are able to spot patterns of calls/compromised numbers. Using this information, City of London Police (the National Lead Force for fraud, who manage the Action Fraud system), the National Cyber Security Centre and the National Crime Agency are able to facilitate numbers being used for scam calls/texts being blocked or removed.

However, the Government recognises there is more to do and is working closely with communications providers, law enforcement, regulators and consumer groups to consider further legislative and non-legislative solutions

This Government is committed to cutting crime and delivering the safer streets that the public deserves, at all times of the day.

The Government is also committed to recruiting 20,000 additional police officers, over 6,000 of whom are already in place. Deployment of the new officers will be a matter for Police and Crime Commissioners and Chief Constables but their presence should contribute to making streets safer.

The Safer Streets Fund was launched on 26 January 2020, providing £25 million in 2020/21 to support 52 areas across England and Wales that are persistently and disproportionately affected by neighbourhood and acquisitive crimes, like burglary, robbery and theft. The fund is being used by Police and Crime Commissioners to invest in well evidenced, physical crime prevention measures, such as improved street lighting and CCTV.

On 28 January 2021, we launched a second £20m round of the Safer Streets Fund, for 2021/22. This second round will give funding to Police and Crime Commissioners and Local Authorities to invest in crime prevention, both in commercial and residential areas.

As set out in the Serious Violence Strategy, the Government is taking a range of action to support the police and others to prevent acid attacks. This is based on the action plan announced in July 2017 which is focused on ensuring effective support to victims and survivors, supporting effective policing, ensuring that the legislation is understood and consistently applied, and restricting access to acids and other harmful corrosive products.

We are working with the National Police Chiefs’ Council on delivery to ensure that the policing response is effective to prevent attacks from happening in the first place, but also in providing support to victims where they do. The National Police Chiefs’ Council has developed appropriate training for officers, including first responder training, specialist investigative guidance to help police officers understand how to safely recover and handle any evidence at the scene and the evidence required to build a case for prosecution.

We are also strengthening the powers available to the police through the Offensive Weapons Bill which is currently passing through Parliament. The Bill includes legislative measures on stopping the sale and delivery of corrosive products to under 18s and making it an offence to possess a corrosive substance in a public place.

Alongside this, the Home Secretary announced on 20 February 2019 that we will be extending stop and search powers for corrosive substances to allow the police to be able to enforce the new possession offence effectively.
We are also working with the Government’s Defence Science and Technology Laboratory to develop corrosive testing kits for the police to support them in situations where they believe that a suspect is carrying a corrosive substance in public.

In addition, the Government has commissioned the University of Leicester to examine what motivates offenders to carry and use acid and other corrosive substances in violent attacks. The research findings are expected to be available later this year, and these will help to inform further preventative and enforcement responses.

No assessment has been made on the effectiveness of tactical contacts. Decisions on when to use tactical contact is an operational matter for individual Chief Officers.

As set out in the Serious Violence Strategy, the Government is taking a range of action to prevent acid attacks. This is based on the action plan announced in July 2017 which detailed four key strands: ensuring effective support for victims and survivors; supporting effective policing; ensuring relevant legislation is understood and consistently applied; and working with retailers to restrict access to acids and other harmful corrosive substances. This is being delivered and includes guidance and support to police officers on how best to prevent such attacks but also how to respond to a victim of an acid attack.

The Government has also introduced the Offensive Weapons Bill which includes new measures on stopping the sale of corrosive products to under 18s, and making it an offence to possess a corrosive substance in a public place without good reason. This new possession offence will make it easier for the police to take action if they stop someone carrying acid as they will no longer need to prove that the person carrying the substance is intending to cause an injury with it.