The Ben Kinsella Trust:- "The latest Office for National Statistics figures bring some welcome news: knife crime is continuing to fall. "Offences are down by 10% compared with last year (December 2024 to December 2025), with 49,151 recorded offences. That is a significant reduction from the post‑pandemic peak of 54,548 and indicates that progress is being made in tackling a problem that has also been described as an epidemic in the recent past. Encouragingly, reductions have been seen across most police force areas. However, the national picture is being driven by particularly strong falls in areas with the highest volumes of knife crime. London has seen a 17% decrease, the North-West (including Greater Manchester and Merseyside) is down 13%, and the West Midlands has recorded a 12% fall. Together, these areas account for a large proportion of knife crime nationally, so changes there have a substantial impact on the overall figures. There are also other positive signs. Homicides have fallen by 6%, and hospital admissions for knife‑related injuries are also down by 10%. Fewer lives lost and fewer people seriously harmed is always something we should recognise, and credit is due to everyone working tirelessly on prevention, enforcement and support on the ground. That said, we must be realistic about the scale of the challenge that remains. Knife crime offences still stand at 49,151, a long way above the Government’s target of reducing knife crime by half, to 27,303, by June 2034. Progress, while welcome, cannot lead to complacency."

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