More than 80,000 knives taken off the streets as knife robbery falls by almost a quarter in the worst hit areas
The Home Office put the total removed or seized since July 2024 at 80,190, around 100 a day, with 3,811 handed in during the August surrender drive alone and knife crime across England and Wales down 11 per cent since the General Election.
More than 80,000 knives and other dangerous weapons have been taken out of circulation since the General Election, the Home Office said on Friday, putting the pace at around 100 a day. The department's total of 80,190 items removed or seized since July 2024 combines surrender schemes, enforcement work, Border Force seizures and the County Lines Programme.
The biggest single block came from the 2024 surrender and compensation scheme for zombie-style knives and machetes, which accounted for 47,795 items. Ninja swords surrendered in July 2025 added 3,942, a further 3,570 came in under extended surrender arrangements the same month, and Home Office-funded surrender bins added 11,787 more across the period from September 2025 to July 2026. Border Force seizures contributed 7,385 and the County Lines Programme 1,900.
The newest figures cover August 2026, when a month of stepped-up surrender activity brought in 3,811 knives and weapons. Of those, 3,049 went into surrender bins run by Word 4 Weapons and 762 were given up to the FazAmnesty mobile van. In Yorkshire, where eight new static bins were installed, 583 weapons were collected in surrender bins in that month alone, and London provided the largest regional share of the bin total, at 2,017.
We are turning the tide, as these results clearly show, but we cannot be satisfied while lives are still being lost and communities are still being harmed.Sarah Jones, Policing and Crime Minister, in the Home Office release of 13 November 2026
Robbery figures moved in the same direction. Knife-enabled robbery fell by 24 per cent against the June 2024 baseline across the seven forces most affected, the Metropolitan Police, Greater Manchester, West Midlands, West Yorkshire, South Yorkshire, Avon and Somerset, and British Transport Police, a fall the department equates to 3,810 fewer robberies and an improvement on the 23 per cent reduction reported in the previous period. The forces work together through a Home Office-led group set up to share intelligence and tactics on offenders and hotspots.
Across England and Wales as a whole, the Home Office said knife crime has fallen 11 per cent since the General Election, a drop of almost 6,000 offences, knife-enabled robbery is down 18 per cent, and homicides involving a knife or sharp instrument are down 25 per cent, leaving knife homicides at a 35-year low. Hospital admissions after assault with a sharp object have fallen 16 per cent, including a 19 per cent fall among under-25s. Those comparisons run from the General Election; on the separate official measure published by the Office for National Statistics in October, police-recorded offences involving a knife or sharp instrument fell 6 per cent in the year to June 2026, to 48,615 from 51,567, and knife homicides in that year fell 9 per cent to 179.
The enforcement push continues alongside the surrender work. A Knife Crime Concentrations Fund of £26.25 million is being rolled out across more than 230 hotspots, paying for extra patrols, work against prolific offenders, better CCTV and work with young people at risk, while a pilot campaign called No Place for Knives has launched in Birmingham, Croydon and Westminster. The National Knife Crime Centre, led by the National Police Chiefs' Council and funded by the Home Office since its launch in April, says it has found 186 grey-market sellers of weapons and has reported 183 social media accounts it suspects of marketing dangerous weapons, asking platforms to close them. All of it sits under the Government's stated aim of halving knife crime within a decade.
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