Lord Clement-Jones (LD)

My Lords, while we welcome the effort to strengthen accountability for businesses and sellers in tackling online knife sales, we must ensure that these new powers are effective, enforceable and subject to continuous review. In moving Amendment 122, I also speak to Amendment 194. Both aim to enhance the long-term effectiveness and impact of this legislation. Amendment 122 would insert a new clause immediately after Clause 32. It would mandate that the Secretary of State conducts a review of the impact of Sections 31 and 32 of what will be the Act within two years of these provisions coming into force. New powers addressing the remote sale of knives are crucial, yet legislative intervention alone is rarely sufficient to address a complex societal challenge such as knife crime. I recall some years ago running a project in the London Borough of Lambeth on precisely this issue, and it was extremely complex dealing with young people in this particular area. We must ensure that the mechanisms we are implementing, such as the requirement for physical ID on delivery and the provisions for age verification, and indeed those mentioned by the Minister, moving towards digital verification, are actually achieving the desired result and preventing the online sale of knives to under-18s. The review must go beyond merely confirming compliance. Crucially, it must also look at other measures that might limit the availability of knives that could be used in violent offences, such as the design of knives—for instance, by changing kitchen knives available online to rounded ends. Home Office statistics indicate that two-thirds of the identified knives used to kill people in a single year are kitchen knives. We are very much on the same page as the noble Lord, Lord Hampton, with his Amendment 123. We must not stand still but use real- world evidence of what works in tackling and preventing violent crime. We need to continuously monitor and assess the effectiveness of the solutions we put in place. Amendment 194 relates to Clause 36: “Duty to report remote sales of knives etc in bulk”. Clause 36 introduces the requirement for sellers to report bulk sales, an essential provision for tackling the grey market and ensuring accountability. However, for this provision to be an effective law enforcement tool, the information reported must be timely. My amendment would require regulations made under Clause 36(1) to include a clear provision that any reportable sale must be notified to the specified person in real time or as soon as is reasonably practicable. Furthermore, to eliminate any ambiguity, the amendment would set a hard stop specifying that notification must occur, in any event, no later than the delivery of the bladed articles or the end of the day on which the seller became aware that the sale constituted a reportable sale. If we expect law enforcement agencies to use this reporting data to intervene and prevent crimes, giving them advance warning is paramount. A delay in reporting a suspicious bulk purchase renders the power largely reactive rather than preventive, and this amendment would simply ensure that the regulations implement the duty to report as soon as possible, turning bureaucratic compliance into actionable intelligence. I hope the Government will support Amendment 122 to ensure accountability and scrutiny over time and Amendment 194 to ensure that the immediate operational impact of the new bulk reporting duties is maximised. I beg to move.