UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer has convened a coalition to stop young people from falling into knife crime, joined by actor and anti-knife crime campaigner Idris Elba. In the year ending March 2023, 41 percent of all homicides in England and Wales were knife-related and rates of knife crime have been steadily rising since 2012, despite being lower than pre-pandemic levels.
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00:00and say now I want to double down on that commitment.
00:03It wasn't a commitment set before the election,
00:05that's then forgotten the other side of the election.
00:07Going on nine weeks after the election is because before the election,
00:11just saying it's a good idea that we got together today,
00:15it is a good idea today.
00:16It is a central government mission.
00:18Today what we're effectively doing
00:20is launching this coalition to tackle minor crime.
00:23This is really important because I think if it's that important,
00:27we can't just say it's a matter for government.
00:29It's not a matter for government, it's a matter for all of us.
00:31That will say it's good that you've done this,
00:33but you need to go further,
00:35or we're not pressing down hard enough.
00:37And to push and use that emotion to offer solutions with it,
00:42rather than public, each step of the way.
00:47It felt that we needed the coalition,
00:49we needed joined up thinking,
00:51we needed so many different perspectives,
00:54parents' perspectives, youth workers' perspectives,
00:59charity organisations, governance, policing.
01:03We need all these perspectives to sit around the table and think about this.
01:07We aren't going to end knife crime.
01:10We can't.
01:12It's not realistic, but we can tackle the attributes towards it.
01:24I'm not a policy expert in reducing the crime.
01:47I'm a grieving mother.
01:49But I will do all I can to ensure
01:52the failings that led to my son's murder are corrected
01:58so that other families don't feel the same pain I feel today.