The Conservatives are demanding a ‘dramatic’ increase in the use of stop and search to take more knives off Britain’s streets following the Huntingdon train attack.
Shadow home secretary Chris Philp said the ‘hand-wringing weakness’ must end over knife crime and violent criminals.
It comes after police declared a major incident when an LNER service from Doncaster to London came to a stop in Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire, on Saturday.
A man alleged to have carried out a stabbing spree on the high-speed train is also accused of a knife attack at a London station earlier that day.
Anthony Williams, 32, will appear in court later on Monday accused of 10 counts of attempted murder, one count of actual bodily harm and one count of possession of a bladed article following the attacks on the LNER service.
He is also charged with another count of attempted murder and possession of a bladed article in connection with an incident on a train at Pontoon Dock DLR station in east London in the early hours of the same day, where a victim suffered facial injuries after being attacked with a knife.
An LNER staff member is in a critical but stable condition in hospital following the stabbings on the Doncaster to London service, while four other people remain in hospital.
The attack is understood to have started shortly after the train left Peterborough station.
Police officers seen at London King’s Cross Station on Monday morning
Police declared a major incident when an LNER service from Doncaster to London came to a stop in Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire, on Saturday
Tory shadow home secretary Chris Philp said the ‘hand-wringing weakness’ must end over knife crime and violent criminals
Police are investigating all circumstances, including whether mental health was a factor, but it is not believed to have been a terrorist incident.
Another man initially arrested on Saturday has been released with no further action after officers established he was not involved.
In an article for The Telegraph, Mr Philp said the train attack had ‘sent a wave of shock and revulsion through Britain’.
The shadow home secretary added a ‘serious overhaul of how we tackle the scourge of violence and knife crime’ was now ‘long overdue’.
He demanded the Government ‘take urgent action to restore confidence in policing and its ability to keep us safe’.
‘The first thing we must do is ensure that more knife crime offenders are jailed,’ he wrote.
‘At present, some do not even get prison sentences. This is not only a moral outrage, but it also puts the public in danger.
‘Those who carry knives, and those who use them, are clearly a serious threat to the public, and that should be reason enough to lock them up.’
Mr Philp also said action was needed ‘to take far more knives off the street’.
‘That means we have to dramatically increase the use of stop and search,’ he continued.
‘The Left says that stop and search is wrong because those searched are disproportionately black when compared to the whole population.
‘Are they seriously saying that the perpetrator of the Huntingdon train atrocity should not have been stopped and searched if encountered?
‘In fact, far from being disproportionate, Policy Exchange research shows the use of stop and search in London is proportionate to the offending population.
‘In other words, it rightly reflects the demographics of people committing crime, not the whole population.
‘And the success rate for stop and search – the proportion of searches where something illegal is found – is broadly the same across ethnic groups.
‘That shows categorically that no one ethnic group is being unfairly picked on.’
Mr Philp reiterated a Tory pledge, made at the party’s conference last month, to triple the use of stop and search.
This would be achieved by giving police powers to stop and search anyone – without first having grounds for suspicion – in thousands of crime hotspots.
The Conservatives also want to lower the threshold for a suspicion-based stop and search elsewhere.
Most stop and search powers currently require an officer to have reasonable grounds for suspicion that an unlawful item is being carried.
Under the powers, police are allowed to detain a person who is not under arrest in order to search them or their vehicle for an unlawful item.
Stop and search has long been a flashpoint in relations between police and minority ethnic communities, especially black people.
Anti-racism campaigners argue that people of colour are unfairly targeted for stop and search.
Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood is expected to make a statement about the Huntingdon train attack in the House of Commons on Monday afternoon.
Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander said there would be an increased police presence at stations but stressed the railways were safe.