Asked by
To ask His Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to
assess the efficacy of violence reduction units in addressing
knife crime.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Home Office () (Con)
My Lords, the Home Office has commissioned a multiyear
independent evaluation to assess the impact of violence reduction
units on the most serious forms of violence and their progress in
adopting a public health approach. Recent findings have shown a
statistically significant reduction in hospital admissions for
violent injuries in VRU areas since funding began in 2019.
(Con)
With the effects of serious violence falling on some communities
far more than on others—here in London we have had 1,000
homicides since 2016—what work has been done by VRUs to increase
the effectiveness of the money that they are allocating?
(Con)
My Lords, since 2019, the Home Office has provided over £43
million to develop and run London’s violence reduction unit,
which includes an investment of £9.5 million in 2023-24. As part
of their funding terms, all VRUs are required to deliver
evidence-based approaches that are shown to deliver the most
impact in steering young people away from violence. In London,
the various interventions being delivered include those that the
independent youth endowment fund has found to be capable of
delivering the highest impact. That includes the delivery of
specialist support for young people affected by violence on
admission to A&E or custody suites, as well as personal
support such as mentoring programmes, where sport is used as a
hook to attract participation.
(Con)
My Lords, a major risk factor for young people’s involvement in
violent gangs is the lack of a father at home, so what are the
violence reduction units doing to make absent fathers part of the
solution? Many are still very present in their children’s minds,
and being estranged from ex-partners does not automatically mean
they have no sense of responsibility towards the children who
have gone astray. How are VRUs harnessing and encouraging that
responsibility?
(Con)
My Lords, the violence reduction units deliver a range of
preventive work with and for communities, as I outlined in the
previous two answers to my noble friend Lord Bailey. That can
include families, which of course obviously involves fathers as
well as young people, and includes a wide range of approaches,
including mentoring and trusted adult programmes or intensive
behavioural therapies and, as I mentioned earlier, sports-based
diversionary activities. In London in particular, the VRU’s My
Ends programme provides community leaders with resources to
enhance violence prevention measures in their areas. In addition,
the Young People’s Action Group, which is made up of young people
from across London, works alongside the VRU to ensure that the
voices of young people influence policy and funding decisions.
(CB)
My Lords, a 2014 Scottish study by Professor John Crichton found
that the kitchen knife was the most commonly used weapon. The
author suggested that the introduction of knives without points
as an effective public health strategy might positively affect
the rate of death and serious injury. I quote:
“It would not be necessary to enforce an absolute ban on long
pointed kitchen knives, but simply to limit availability, thereby
making a lethal weapon less likely to be at hand in the context
of unplanned violence”.
Is this something that VRUs are taking forward and that the
Government would support?
(Con)
The noble Baroness raises an interesting point. Of course, we
keep all knife legislation under review, and noble Lords will be
aware that moves have been made recently to ban, for example,
zombie-style knives and machetes. Secondary legislation was laid
in January, guidance will be available from 26 June and the ban
will come into effect on 24 September. I will ensure that all
forms of knives are kept very closely under review, particularly
in view of patterns of use.
(GP)
My Lords, obviously, large urban areas such as London have
particular problems, and I would argue that there is a lot more
crime. Are any comparative assessments being done so that each
VRU can learn from others in all sorts of ways?
(Con)
Yes, again, the noble Baroness raises a very good point. She is
right, of course, that London has particular problems in this
area. The activities of certain violence reduction units have
absolutely influenced the way that the whole programme has been
established across England and Wales—and indeed taking a lot of
the lead from Scotland.
(Lab)
My Lords, knife crime is up by 70% since 2015 and, according to
the YMCA, youth services were cut by 71% in the decade after
2010. Does the noble Lord think these two statistics are linked?
Does he also believe that, building on the work of the VRUs,
local youth services should be introduced and backed in a way to
try to prevent further knife crime?
(Con)
On the noble Lord’s latter point, I agree, which is one of the
reasons the Home Office has invested £200 million in the youth
endowment fund, to which I have already referred. As regards
knife crime across the country, the rise is driven largely by the
situation in London. For police-recorded offences involving
knives or sharp instruments, there was a 5% increase year-on-year
nationally, but the increase in London was 22%. If London was
taken out of those figures, the natural trend would be a 1%
reduction.
(LD)
My Lords, violence reduction units can definitely reduce knife
crime, as has been shown time and time again, but for them to be
able to do their job properly they need long-term funding and
they are not being provided with it. The Government’s three-year
funding model runs out next year and there is great anxiety about
what will come next. Will the Government reconsider their current
funding model and provide the sort of long-term funding that
these units, which are so desperately needed, require to do the
job they were set up for?
(Con)
As I have already outlined, we have already committed over £110
million since 2019 across the country. Of course, we want to see
VRUs continue to operate beyond the end of 2025; by that time,
though, they will have received investment for six years. We
would encourage VRUs to become financially sustainable
organisations. We will of course support them to obtain matched
funding and partnership buy-in, but future funding beyond 2025
will depend on the needs of the VRUs and the outcome of future
spending reviews.
(CB)
My Lords, how many of the VRUs include domestic and gender-based
violence within their definition of serious violence? Does the
Minister agree that artificially separating public violence
—street violence—from private violence in the home ignores the
links between the two, not least the impact on young people’s
future behaviour through what they might learn is normal?
(Con)
Again, the noble Baroness raises a good point. I think it is
important to collect the statistics as accurately and in as
granular a way as possible. So I would perhaps mildly dispute the
second part of the question. However, we need to look at the way
violence occurs in the round—so the noble Baroness raises a very
good point.
(Con)
My Lords, it is critical to rebuild trust from these communities
and public services who are so affected by violence if violence
reduction units are to be successful. This is obviously possible
but it is very challenging. What steps are being taken to
evaluate successful measures to rebuild trust and share those
between violence reduction units, so that this can be done
effectively?
(Con)
I thank my noble friend for that question. Part of the funding
for VRUs has to be allocated towards evaluation, but an
independent evaluation programme shows that, alongside the Grip,
which we have talked about before from this Dispatch Box, there
are serious violent hotspot programmes. These are putting
additional highly visible police patrols into key locations. The
VRU programme is having a statistically significant positive
effect, as I referenced earlier. An estimated 3,220 hospital
admissions for violent injury have been avoided since funding
began in 2019.
(LD)
Can I just challenge the Minister? He suggested that in the
future, VRUs will depend on match funding and non-governmental
sources of money. Surely, violence reduction and the protection
of our young people is a core activity and it is entirely right
that it should be fully funded by the taxpayer. Other money is
for add-ons and extras: this, surely, is not an add-on or an
extra.
(Con)
I was not making the case that it was an add-on or an extra; I
was saying that future funding beyond 2025 will be dependent on
the needs of the VRUs and the outcome of future spending reviews,
and of course the evaluation that is already under way.
(Lab)
My Lords, is not the increase a direct consequence of the cuts in
public services, for example to local government, youth services
and the police? The police used to make visits to schools and
many police authorities have stopped doing that completely. Do
the Government not need to understand that their cuts over 13
years have had a dramatic effect on this issue?
(Con)
My Lords, I referenced earlier that there is some new funding.
The London Metropolitan Police, for example, will receive an
additional £8 million this year and the City of London will
receive an extra £1 million for additional visible patrols in
serious violence and anti-social behaviour hotspots. The funding
supports the delivery of a combination of regular high-visibility
patrols in the streets and neighbourhoods experiencing the
highest volumes of serious violence and/or anti-social behaviour.
I remind noble Lords that there are currently more police in this
country than ever before. The Metropolitan Police currently has
35,000 and could have had more; the budget was available but they
were unable to recruit up to the budget, which is a shame because
it obviously cost them some resource. The Government have
delivered on their police uplift programme.
