Ben Obese-Jecty

I wholeheartedly agree. Areas that traditionally have not been plagued by such violence are increasingly finding it rippling out into their communities. It is no longer just in large cities and areas that we would traditionally associate with it; we are finding it slowly moving into the suburbs. We need to nip this in the bud if we can to prevent any more tragedies. A key question is: why are children now prepared to murder other children? It cannot be ignored that we see countless examples weekly—even daily—of a child being stabbed by another child. When did children develop a nihilistic worldview and a willingness to take the life of another child? In my previous career as an Army officer, I instructed new soldiers in phase one training, so I know how long it takes to train a teenager to be prepared to kill. How and why are some children developing that mindset all on their own? Fear is a huge driver of knife-carrying. The Ben Kinsella Trust’s “Keeping Young People Safe” report illustrates that it drives the normalisation of carrying a knife. In the report, two thirds of respondents to a survey of some 10,000 young people said that they harboured anxiety about knife crime. Shockingly, the survey shows that children as young as 10 or 11 years old are considering carrying a knife. Though the numbers are very low, that shows that the idea of carrying a knife is within the scope of children who have only just stopped believing in Father Christmas. Are children murdering other children solely out of fear? These children are not actually under threat—these are fights over little more than perceived slights—but somehow we have reached a stage of such frenzied paranoia among children of school age that they believe not only that they need to carry a knife, but that taking a life is somehow a reasonable, rational response to these situations. There is a sensible argument for access to therapy as a potential solution, but I appreciate that that is easy to suggest and unrealistic to facilitate and implement. I have gone on long enough; I want to give others an opportunity to speak. I hope to hear many important and interesting contributions from hon. Members. I open the debate to others.