Labour caves in to Liberal Democrat pressure to toughen up on knife crime - but misses out Bedfordshire

12.21.23am UTC (GMT +0000) Mon 18th Aug 2008

New plans to tackle knife crime will not be introduced to Bedfordshire according to an announcement by the Labour government.

Despite the county having a higher proportion of serious crime involving knives than the national average, as Bedford and Kempston Liberal Democrats highlighted last week, the Labour government has only proposed using the scheme to crack down on people selling knives to young people in a handful of areas.

Bedford Lib Dems brought it to the attention of the public on July 23 that no-one across the whole of the UK had been imprisoned for selling knives to under-age children in the last five years.

Subsequently, on August 5, the Bedford Lib Dems highlighted the higher proportion of knife crime in Bedfordshire.

Labour has now ignored the area in its anti-knife crime campaign.

Henry Vann said:

"It is outrageous that for so long so few people were sent to prison under this Labour government. It is a relief that they now see fit to do something about it, but it is too late for so many of those affected by knife crime.

"However, this plan is short-sighted. With knife crime an above average proportion of our serious crime in Bedfordshire, why are we not included in the crack-down? Once again, Bedford is being let down by the government.

"The government is driven by events and has no sensible plan of action."