This month will see the return of Operation Sceptre, the national campaign to get knives off the streets. Cheshire Constabulary will run education programmes, carry out targeted sweeps and place knife amnesty boxes at different location across the area where people can dispose of weapons, no questions asked.
It is an initiative I support. I want everything possible done to reduce the number of knife related incidents and end the scourge of needless deaths.
Last Saturday on the Doncaster to London King’s Cross train we saw the devastation that can be caused with a knife - horrific, senseless violence.
Last year, 6,315 people were sent to prison for knife and offensive weapon related offences, with an average prison sentence of eight months.
But under changes being introduced by this Labour government, most (if not all) of those 6,315 criminals would escape prison, instead getting a slap on the wrist and allowed to walk free – back into our communities.
That is because government as part of its Sentencing Bill wants to end custodial sentences of 12 months or less with the focus on community punishments.
Last week, I tabled a series of amendments to the Bill. Among those was excluding knife crime from the automatic suspended sentence. My plea fell on deaf ears and government is pushing ahead with these dangerous changes.
Any MP who voted for the Bill without amendment was voting to allow someone to carry a knife or threaten with a knife and escape prison. Every MP who voted for the Bill without amendments should hang their heads in shame.
It is ludicrous that at a time when it seems not a week goes by without hearing of another needless death from stabbing, or serious incidents involving knives, that government is choosing to introduce changes that will keep those guilty of carrying weapons out of prison.
A year ago, Labour said it wanted to tackle knife crime and halve knife related incidents. Now it is sending out the signal it is ok to carry a knife as there will be no consequences.
Labour is the party of empty words and broken promises and there will be plenty ready and willing to remind them of this in future. The public will be outraged by these changes. And there will be no words of comfort for the family of a needless victim of this type of crime.