Chris Philp says manufacturers found ploy to get around previous ban on previous ban on zombie knives
Good morning. Labour and the Conservatives are in a bidding war over knife crime today, with Keir Starmer announcing or re-announcing various plans to deal with the problem on the day when the Home Office is laying legislation before parliament to ban Zombie-style knives. Pippa Crerar has the details here.
You may think the government was meant to have banned them already. According to Labour, the government has made 16 announcements on this theme since 2015. But, as Chris Philp, the policing minister, admitted this morning, a previous crackdown contained a rather obvious loophole.
I wasn’t responsible at the time. There was essentially a loophole where the knives that were banned in 2019 had to have threatening words or pictures on them … What happened then is the manufacturers responded by taking the words and pictures off … that, amongst other loopholes, is being closed.
That may be so. I can answer for what we’re doing now. This came to my attention and we’re fixing it today.
