Naushabah Khan

I thank the hon. Member for Huntingdon (Ben Obese-Jecty) for bringing this debate to the House, and I commend colleagues for their powerful speeches. It is clear that there is an undeniable consensus across the House on the need to get this right. However, consensus alone is not enough. A national crisis has devastated families and shattered futures, and it continues to cause damage. The Office for National Statistics reported 50,000 knife-related offences in 2022-23. In just one year, 50,000 lives were affected, and there were 50,000 incidents of fear, injury and, sadly for some, tragedy. In my Gillingham and Rainham constituency, we had several incidents in recent years, including the stabbing of a 17-year-old boy in the town centre by two other young people. Members across the House will be familiar with visiting local schools in their constituencies, and many will agree that students are often the toughest crowd—never shy of asking direct and uncompromising questions, with a grilling that would put any Select Committee to the test. Time and again, however, one issue persists: safety. Students ask me why they should feel afraid to walk through their high street in the evening, why their communities do not feel safe, and why more is not being done to protect them. It troubles me that most of that stands in stark contrast to my own experience growing up in the very same community and in the same area. I wish to tell those students that the fear and the sense of abandonment that they feel today is not inevitable. Some of it is the direct result of years of neglect. In reality, the Conservatives left behind a legacy of cuts and, at times, indifference to the futures of young people across this country. They dismantled the very support systems designed to keep young people safe: £1 billion was stripped from youth services, 760 youth centres were shut down, and 4,500 youth workers were lost. The evidence is clear: every £1 invested in youth work prevents greater costs down the line. In viewing knife crime as the public health crisis that it truly is, we must recognise that the principles of upstream prevention have never been more pertinent. The truth is that by the time a young person picks up a knife, we have already failed them. That is why the Government’s coalition on knife crime is a significant step in the right direction, allowing us to get to the root causes of knife crime, not just the symptoms. I also welcome the Home Secretary’s commitment to bringing back neighbourhood policing, which will work towards restoring the trust and presence that have been dismantled. Communities such as mine are desperate for officers who will build relationships, prevent crime before it happens and reassure those who have lost faith. However, we cannot arrest our way out of this crisis. We must invest in young people, not only to steer them away from crime but to offer them a future beyond it. Like many others, I have binge-watched the compelling drama “Adolescence”, which highlights so well the toxic online culture that our young people are exposed to.