Labour on a mission to halve knife crime, Cooper says

Home Secretary Yvette Cooper has set out plans to crackdown on crime as she said the government would attempt to halve knife offences in a decade.

In a speech to Labour conference, Cooper said police would be given new powers to tackle anti-social behaviour, off-road bikes and shoplifting.

The government would also pass a new law to ban the sale of ninja and samurai swords, she said.

Cooper described Labour as the "party of law and order" and said criminals exploited “cracks in the system” under the Conservatives.

The home secretary began her speech in Liverpool by paying tribute to Pooja Kanda, whose teenage son Ronan was stabbed to death with a ninja sword in 2022.

Ronan was 16 when he was killed near his home in Wolverhampton. He was a victim of mistaken identity and two 17-year-olds were sentenced for the killing.

Speaking before Cooper at the conference, Ms Kanda said: "Too many mothers get the devastating news that I got.”

Cooper said lethal weapons were being “put straight in the hands of children”.

“So this Labour government will bring in new laws to crackdown on dangerous online sales and the gangs who draw children in,” she said.

Yvette Cooper embraced Pooja Kanda on stage at Labour conference

The government’s Crime and Policing Bill would close a loophole on the sales of ninja and samurai swords, and jail tech company executives if banned zombie knives and machetes are sold on their platforms.

"We will make it a mission for our whole country to halve knife crime in a decade," Cooper said.

Cooper's focus on the rule of law comes on the day a ban on owning zombie-style knives and machetes comes into force.

There were more than 50,000 incidents of knife crime recorded in 2023-2024, an increase of 4% on the previous year, according to ONS figures.

Anti-social behaviour was another big theme of Cooper’s speech.

The government plans to bring forward legislation next year to introduce "respect orders", which are designed to ban persistent anti-social offenders from town centres.

There are also plans to bring in an additional 13,000 police officers, guaranteed local patrols, and create a new standalone offence of assaulting a shopworker.

Cooper also spoke about the riots that followed the knife attack in Southport and recieved a standing ovation for her comments.

She said the violent disorder “happened because criminals thought they would get away with it”.

“They were wrong,” she said. “With Keir Starmer’s leadership, this Labour government made clear that we would back our police, not blame them.”

In a speech peppered with references to a "serious government", Cooper stressed Labour's general election victory meant the party was able to introduce policies and told her audience that politics mattered.

She also addressed migration, saying the asylum system was in chaos and that the government was boosting border security.

There were also pledges to tackle violence against women and girls, an issue Cooper called "a national emergency".

She promised to put domestic abuse specialists into 999 control rooms and to pursue perpetrators who put lives at risk.

The home secretary said the government wanted to halve violence against women and girls in a decade and declared "our daughters deserve better than this".