Kitchen knives could be seized from the homes of suspected criminals under a proposed Home Office plan.
Police will be consulted by ministers to allow them extra powers to ‘seize, retain and destroy bladed articles’ kept in private, even if the knives are ‘not on the Home Office’s banned list of weapons’.
According to The Telegraph, the move is one of numerous measures created to harden up sentences for selling, importing and possessing knives.
The Ben Kinsella Trust noted an 11 per cent increase in knife crime in England and Wales in the 12 months to September 2022, with police recording 50,434 offences involving a knife or sharp instrument during that period.
A total of 20 knives and similar weapons are banned in the UK, including belt buckle knives, push daggers, spiral knives, butterfly knives, swords and stealth knives.