Criminal Justice Act 1988 (Offensive Weapons) (Amendment No. 2) Order 2008

The noble Viscount and the noble Baroness have got to the nub of the matter. One problem is to capture all the sorts of knives that one would like, which is just so difficult. There is such an availability of knives, including kitchen knives. The noble Viscount is absolutely right that they are more often used than ceremonial weapons. But the police were particularly concerned about these copies of samurai swords which had been used for a number of violent incidents. They were not the original swords made by the Japanese, which are so expensive and are made in a traditional style; apart from anything else, you know straight away from the cost. But the police were really concerned about these imitation samurai swords, which is why we went down this route. In the past few days, noble Lords may have seen people talking on television about knife crime, and there were pictures of three youths showing off with exactly those swords. They are extremely dangerous. So this is the right thing to do, but we have to ensure that other people are not captured by the provisions. Enactment societies will be protected. The Sealed Knot society will be protected, for example, and so will the Gurkha kukris. The only swords that are over that length are used largely for ceremonials, particularly when an ox is ceremonially killed, for instance. I do not know the answer to the Freemason question and I shall get back to noble Lords in writing. We are not meant to know what happens in freemasonry, are we? Noble Lords clearly have knowledge about that. I do not know the answer to that question, but with traditionally made swords one can tell the difference. This provision is not aimed at them. We are in a very difficult area; there are much broader issues than simply removing knives, which are behind all these proposals. We will debate all these issues; they have been discussed for many months, but they have come to a head in the past week or so. Many other things impact on this; it is extremely difficult to capture all of them, but we have to change how people behave and act. That is the only real way in which to end these problems. But this small step is necessary. I hope that these changes make sense and will protect people who have a valid reason for having these weapons and are not the sort of people who go out and cause problems. I commend the order to the Committee.