Will Stone

It is an honour to serve under your chairship, Ms McVey. I thank the hon. Member for Ashfield (Lee Anderson) for securing the debate. Although we may not agree on how to fix knife crime, I believe everybody here cares and wants to sort out the issue. Knife crime is huge and devastating, with a massive impact—not just on friends and families, but on communities. When we talk about this subject it is important to remember that these are not just statistics, numbers on a piece of paper, but people who have lost their lives. This is a little personal for me because I witnessed a slashing. When I left the Army, I took a job as a bouncer and there was an incident between two gangs outside the club after closing hours. I will never forget seeing a human flashing a blade at another human. Bear in mind that I was in the Army and have seen a few things, but that was a crazy situation that will always stick with me. As the hon. Member for Ashfield said, we have a duty as legislators to get a grip of the situation. I am going to talk about two stabbings that happened in Swindon. Owen Dunn was murdered on 4 December 2022. He was only 18 years old, basically a child, and was stabbed in his armpit with a machete. He had his whole life ahead of him; that was completely unacceptable and tragic. Through their grief, his family have set up a charity, Owen’s World. They have honoured his death by going into schools, educating students about knife crime and raising funding for bleed kits. I do not believe we should have to have such kits but, when there is an incident, they are needed. The second person I want to talk about is Lee Turner. I knew Lee because we grew up in the same area. The place where he was stabbed, the Venney, is around the corner from my house. His was another life taken too soon. Lee might not have been a model citizen, as even his sister would admit, but he did not deserve to die. His sister has done a fantastic job, putting her energy into setting up Change Lives No to Knives, which focuses on education and amnesty bins. The hon. Member for Ashfield might not agree that we need amnesty bins but there are people in our community who do not feel comfortable going to the police. We need to rebuild that relationship with community policing. Amnesty bins serve a purpose by offering the opportunity to hand blades in without fear of repercussion. I am so proud and grateful to both those charities and all the charities across this country. Their focus on education and prevention will play a massive part in addressing knife crime.