On Tuesday in the House of Lords there was a discussion entitled Knife Crime: Violence Reduction Units which is available here and it began with Shaun Bailey for this comment “To ask His Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to assess the efficacy of violence reduction units in addressing knife crime.” he is a member of the Conservative and he and indeed all of the other members of the House of Lords were responded by Andrew Sharpe from Epsom who is a member of the Government. Here is the response to Shaun in his first comment.

Andrew: 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.

Then after another comment from Shaun and comments from a few other people, Jenny Jones who is a member of the Green Party for Moulsecoomb in Brighton spoked

Jenny: 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?

Andrew: 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.

Then later on Frederick Ponsonby who is Labour member from Roehampton and he raised the question about the YMCA so here is his call.

Frederick: 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?

Andrew: 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.