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LONDON - Cherie Blair fears for the safety of her children when they go out on the streets.
The former British Prime Minister's wife also says Government figures drastically underestimated the scale of knife crime among children.
Blair told MPs yesterday that she had found alarming evidence of rising violence involving knives among children.
While chairing a "street weapons commission", she attacked Government statistics which, she said, "did not acknowledge what is happening to young people" and called for a new approach to tackle the "lethal fashion accessories".
"As a parent I am concerned about what is happening when my children are on the street and I know I am not unique in that by any means," she told the home affairs select committee.
So far this year, 31 young people have been stabbed to death in Britain. In London, 17 teenagers have died as a result of gun or knife crime.
Crime statistics produced by the Government suggest that the use of weapons in violent crime is stable. But latest figures show an 89 per cent rise in the number of under-16s with serious stab wounds in the past five years and a 75 per cent rise for older teenagers over the same period.
Blair said there was a need to "take the glamour" out of carrying knives and called for more "high-visibility" policing in inner-city areas where officers knew young people were regularly and increasingly carrying weapons.
- INDEPENDENT
