Minister admits that previous crackdown on zombie knives contained obvious loophole – UK politics live

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.

When the government legislated to ban zombie knives, it defined them as blades having a cutting edge, a serrated edge and “images or words that suggest that it is to be used for the purpose of violence”. When the legislation came into force, manufacturers came up with a cunning ploy to get round the ban; they just left off the images or logos.

When asked why the legislation contained such an obvious flaw, Philp told LBC:

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.

When it was put to him that it should have been obvious manufacturers would do this, he replied:

That may be so. I can answer for what we’re doing now. This came to my attention and we’re fixing it today.

Here is the agenda for the day.

9.30am: Kemi Badenoch, the business and trade secretary, takes questions in the Commons.

Morning: Keir Starmer is on a visit in Buckinghamshire.

10am: Alister Jack, the Scottish secretary, gives evidence to the UK Covid inquiry in Edinburgh. Liz Lloyd, Nicola Sturgeon’s former chief of staff, follows him and Humza Yousaf, Scotland’s first minister, gives evidence at 2pm.

10.30am: Penny Mordaunt, leader of the Commons, takes questions on next week’s business in the chamber.

11am: Mark Drakeford, the outgoing Welsh first minister, takes part in a Q&A at the Institute for Government thinktank.

11.30am: Downing Street holds a lobby briefing.

After 11.30am: Karen Bradley, the chair of the Commons procedure committee, makes a Commons statement on her committee’s proposal for David Cameron to be questioned by MPs in the chamber.

Afternoon: Rishi Sunak is on a visit in Yorkshire.

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