Tom Collins

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Sir John. I recently met the young people representing our county in the Worcestershire Youth Cabinet, and they shared with us their priorities, the highest of which, to my shock, was crime and safety. They are very concerned by the issue, and knife crime was at the top of their list of concerns. They suggested actions, and we discussed all the things my hon. Friend the Member for West Bromwich (Sarah Coombes) raised: visible policing, prioritising the restriction of access to knives, and early intervention and education, including restoring youth centres and youth services. However, their key ask was that we do the work to understand the root causes and motivations behind knife crime among young people. My first takeaway from that conversation was how keen young people are to collaborate on this issue as we start to tackle it. My second takeaway was how important it is that we do not work from assumptions, but really try to understand, from the perspective of young people, what is driving this problem—that we listen to, involve and empower young people. That is all the more important when we realise just how fuelled this issue is by fear, apathy and disenfranchisement. Young people care deeply about this issue. They are ready to engage, and they deserve a voice. On behalf of the young people in Worcester, I want to echo their call and their offer: let us act urgently at all levels of policing, disrupting and preventing knife crime, but let us, as we do that, put young people at the very heart of that response. We will tackle this issue most effectively when we put our influence, power and resources in their hands, so let us put young people at the centre of what we do as we tackle and end the problem of knife crime.