I am very grateful to the hon. Gentleman. People sometimes assume that those killed as a result of knife crime are themselves involved in gang culture, but that is not always the case. It is very important to put on the record that innocent lives can be taken away by the use of knives.
It is important for the House to be clear that carrying knives and committing offences with them is completely and utterly unacceptable. New clauses 6 and 7 may help us do that. Although they do not in any way represent a complete solution, we owe it to those who have lost their lives and their families to treat the issue with the seriousness that it deserves.
The hon. Member for Cambridge suggested that there is somehow a choice between being tough in sentencing and spending money to prevent people from getting caught up in gang culture and the use of knives. That is a false choice—we need to do both.
I recognise that the issue is very difficult. I have met young people in my constituency who tell me that they carry a knife to make them feel safe, while some have heard stories of young people being asked to carry a knife for somebody else. There is some logic to the argument that some people who end up committing crimes with knives are victims in some ways, as well as perpetrators. Young people in my constituency are concerned about their safety. I may feel safe when I walk the streets in Lewisham, but when I have gone to meet children in our schools—they do excellent work with some of the community groups set up to tackle this problem—it has been brought home to me that there is a real issue, and that we need to find a way to take knives off our streets.
Some young people carry knives because they think that it is glamorous, but the vast majority of young people in Lewisham do not carry knives. If young people know that the second time they are caught carrying a knife they will face a mandatory custodial sentence, that will be an important lesson. I recognise, however, that some discretion still exists for judges to consider exceptional circumstances.
I am interested in what happens to an individual when they receive a mandatory custodial sentence and go to prison for committing their second knife-related offence. I am reminded of the comments of my constituent, Barry Mizen, the father of a young man murdered on the streets of Lewisham—not as the result of a knife, but through a wholly different set of circumstances. When he talks about how we should tackle violence on our streets, the question of rehabilitation and what happens to people when they go to prison, he says something very powerful: “I’m less interested in how long someone goes to prison for than in what comes out at the end.”
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I would like to use this opportunity to press Ministers on what is happening in our prisons. When people, be they young men or adults, go to prison for knife-related offences, what work is done to give them the skills and opportunities that they need to get on with their lives, but on a different course, when they leave prison? For me, some basic things need to be done in respect of where people live when they leave prison and their
ability to get a job. Work should be done to give employers a different attitude to giving such individuals a second chance.