Home Office consultation on new knife legislation to tackle use of machetes and other bladed articles
Written by AlisonFreemantle on Friday 5th May 2023
Consultation open until Tuesday 6th June
Of all recorded homicides in the year ending September 2022, the proportion where a knife or sharp instrument was the method of killing was 39%. Thousands of people are seeking hospital treatment for stab wounds each year, with some offences never reported to police. The Home Office are consulting on legislative measures to provide the police with more tools to disrupt knife possession and tackle knife crime.
They have identified certain types of machetes and large outdoor knives that do not seem to have a practical use and appear to be designed to look menacing and be favoured by those who want to use these knives as weapons. They intend to include them in the list of prohibited offensive weapons set out in the schedule to The Criminal Justice Act 1988 (Offensive Weapons) Order 1988. This would mean that the manufacture, importation, sale and supply of these items would be an offence. Possession, both in public and in private, would also be an offence, unless a defence applies.
The Home Office are inviting views from respondents on the finer details of the description of the items they intend to ban. They are also consulting on whether to provide the police with additional powers to enable them to seize, retain and destroy bladed articles of any length held in private, or whether the powers should be limited to articles of a certain length, even if the items themselves are not prohibited.
The responses to this 8-week consultation will inform their proposals on whether there is a need for future legislation and, if so, the form that this will take. The measures in this consultation are proposals at this stage and remain subject to change following the consultation process. Any legislative proposals considered necessary would apply in relation to England and Wales only.
The consultation is open to the public and seeks the views of directly affected parties, businesses, and organisations with a direct interest in the proposals, and key stakeholder groups and communities affected by the devastating effects of knife crime, to ensure policy development is informed by a full range of views.
Link to the consultation:
Complete the online form at: