Keir Starmer hails police operation tackling knife crime on visit to Milton Keynes

Sir Keir Starmer praised the work of police officers based in Milton Keynes for their approach to knife crime.

Yesterday (24 January), the Labour Leader announced his plans to combat knife crime and today visited officers and youth groups to see what can done to eradicate the fatal crime.

He told reporters: “Here at Milton Keynes, at this police station they have been talking us through the work that they are doing. Really good work. Where they identify those most at risk of carrying a knife and intervene to prevent it happening in the first place.

"So that could be involving parents at home, but also involving schools and communities at large.”

Sir Starmer said a Labour Government would commit £100 million to knife prevention schemes and referenced the importance of making knives more difficult to purchase online and over the counter, as ways suffering from knife crime could be significantly reduced.

When asked what more could be done to eradicate knife crime in areas like Milton Keynes where there is already a significant amount of police and community operations dedicated to addressing the situation, Sir Starmer added: “I think what we do is we capture good practice. In the announcement we made yesterday we said that we want not just the police, but all the relevant agencies to put together a risk register of all the people that might be at risk.

"That is happening here in Milton Keynes and I’d like to see that happening in other places, as well. Always build on what’s working.

"I think to support the work that is going on here, we owe it to the teams here in Milton Keynes to do the work that is necessary to ban zombie-style knives, to do the work on age verification, and to make sure they’ve got the tools at their disposal, so that when somebody is caught with a knife, if they carry a knife they carry the consequences.”

During his visit to MK, Sir Starmer was briefed by police officers on the effectiveness of amnesty bins and how some young people have surrendered weapons taking advantage of the chance to do so anonymously, without the threat of being arrested.