‘Every mother or father ought to be anxious that 10-year-olds really feel want to hold knife’

Labour’s crime prevention chief says it is “terrifying” that 10-year-olds are carrying knives as she warned that the Government seems to have “given up” on tackling the problem.

In her first interview since taking over as Shadow Crime Prevention Minister, Feryal Clark warned a generation of youngsters has been “left behind” with youth services and community policing decimated under the Tories. Ms Clark vowed that if Labour wins the general election, bosses at online firms that sell deadly weapons to children will be prosecuted and ninja swords will finally be banned.

She also said new laws will see gang leaders who exploit children face up to 14 years behind bars. Ms Clark told The Mirror: “It’s really, really scary, every bit of data shows the trajectory is of it getting worse, knife crime has gone up by 80% since 2015, and what’s really scary is the age of young people who are actually carrying weapons.

“Ten-year-olds are being caught and that is terrifying, absolutely terrifying.” Her comments come amid growing concern about children carrying knives. Data obtained under the Freedom of Information Act reveals that West Midlands Police recorded 30 cases of under-10s possessing a blade between 2018 and 2023.

Ms Clark said: “There’s been 14 years of completely abandoning young people. A whole generation has been completely forgotten. Up and down the country youth services have been gutted, there’s nothing there for young people anymore.

“You have a government who just almost seems to have given up. You just have to think of how many opportunities there have been to change things. There is no tough on crime or the causes of crime.”

And she added: “It should should really, really worry every mother, father, every adult that a 10-year-old feels the need to carry a knife because they feel unsafe on the streets. It should really worry us all.”

She said the failure to ban ninja swords after a Labour call was voted down last week was an example of this. Nearly 50,000 incidents involving knives were reported to police in 2023. There were 244 killings in England and Wales in the year to March 2023, with 78 victims aged below 25. Ten were under 16.

Ms Clark said too little is being done to stop kids caught with a blade going on to commit more serious crimes. “For half of young people caught with a knife, nothing is done,” she said. “They should be referred to a youth offending team who absolutely have to put in place a diversionary action plan. Not enough is being done.”

Labour has vowed to plough nearly £100million into setting up a Young Futures programme to tackle knife crime, paid for by ending tax breaks for private schools. This will include setting up youth hubs across England and Wales, and mental health workers in A&E departments. On top of that, it plans to recruit 30,000 neighbourhood police officers and PCSOs.

Ms Clark said new laws will target gangs who exploit children – with those found guilty facing up to 14 years behind bars. “We have gangs up and down the country targeting our young people and getting away with it,” the shadow minister said.

And in a warning to tech bosses, Ms Clark said those who allow knives, machetes and swords to be sold on their platform will face prosecution. “It’s scary the kind of weapons that they are allowing to be sold,” she said. “And so when families are losing their children I don’t think it’s enough for them to get sanctioned by Ofcom. I think it needs to be more serious.”

She said Labour’s programme will ensure those found carrying a weapon don’t slip through the gaps. This will mean mandatory referrals to youth offending teams, she said, stating: “Some places do it really well, some places don’t do it at all.”

Ms Clark admitted that delivering Keir Starmer‘s vow to halve the number of incidents involving blades within a decade will be a massive challenge. “I’m not naive to the fact it’s a huge, huge task,” she said. “But a lot of the work we’re already doing in the background. We are getting ready to hit the ground running if we are successful in an election.”