Criminal Justice Act 1988 (Offensive Weapons) (Amendment) Order 2008

On these Benches the order is particularly poignant. I am grateful to the Minister for mentioning the attack on my noble friend Lord Jones of Cheltenham, who, at the time, was an MP. Of course, our party lost a particularly hardworking researcher, with all the trauma that that brought for the family and friends involved. We are happy to see this order brought forward on to the statute book and support it. I have a couple of questions for the Minister. First, he mentioned the valid defences of theatrical events and filming. I did not see that in print in the order; perhaps I have missed something. Secondly, besides samurai swords, which are a distinct category—the Minister explained how it is defined—there are other weapons from other places. For example, Indonesia has a very similar weapon known as a kris, which is very long, has wavy edges and is lethal. Why have the Government chosen to be so specific about this? I presume it is just because samurai swords have become the weapon of choice for a particularly violent and unpleasant cult style of killing. We support the order. I do not want to go into wider issues now, but knife crime concerns Members from all Benches. At some point, it would be interesting to have a debate in which the Minister can update us on the success that the police are having in tackling knife crime and on some of the initiatives, such as mobile arches to search individuals in areas with particularly high levels of knife crime. This is an area fraught with difficulty. In the Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill, the Government brought forward provisions on the possession of extreme, violent pornography. Extreme violence on its own, without the pornographic element, should also concern us.