Tag: Downing Street

The press release issued by 10 Downing Street on 13 September 2024.

The King has approved the nomination of The Venerable Rhiannon King, Archdeacon of Ipswich and Director of ‘Inspiring Ipswich’, in the Diocese of St Edmundsbury and Ipswich, as Suffragan Bishop of Southampton, in the Diocese of Winchester, in succession to The Right Reverend Deborah Sellin, following her translation to Bishop of Peterborough.

Background

Rhiannon was educated at Exeter University, has two Master’s degrees and trained for ministry at Ridley Hall, Cambridge. She served her title in the Huntingdon Team Ministry in the Diocese of Ely and in 2001 she was ordained priest. From 2004, Rhiannon served as Rector of Fulbourn and the Wilbrahams, a rural multi-parish benefice outside Cambridge, during which time she was elected to General Synod. In 2010 she was appointed Transforming Church Co-ordinator/Diocesan Mission Enabler in the Diocese of Birmingham and, from 2014, she served as the Director of Mission.

In 2019, Rhiannon took up her current roles as Archdeacon of Ipswich and Director of ‘Inspiring Ipswich’, in the Diocese of St Edmundsbury and Ipswich.

The press release issued by 10 Downing Street on 13 September 2024.

The Prime Minister has arrived in Washington to hold talks with U.S. President Joe Biden today.

In an extended meeting at the White House, the Prime Minister and the President will discuss a wide range of pressing international issues – including our ongoing support for Ukraine, and the urgent need for a ceasefire deal and the release of all hostages in the Middle East.

The session will focus on strategy and how progress can be made towards long-term solutions for both conflicts.

It follows the Foreign Secretary and US Secretary of State’s visit to Kyiv this week, where they heard directly from President Zelenskyy about Ukraine’s current position against Russia’s ongoing barbaric invasion.

In a significant escalation, it was also confirmed this week that Iran has transferred ballistic missiles to Russia – bolstering Putin’s capability to continue his illegal war. The UK confirmed an extra £600 million of support for Ukraine yesterday, on top of the £3 billion a year for as long as needed confirmed by the Prime Minister in July.

On the Middle East, they will discuss the devastating loss of life in Gaza and how urgent progress can be made towards the release of all hostages, a ceasefire deal on both sides, and avoiding regional escalation at all costs.

The meeting is also expected to touch on a wider range of global issues, including advancing a free and open Indo-Pacific and strengthening US-UK co-operation to secure supply chains and increase climate resilience.

Both the President and Prime Minister agree we should be using the strength of the US-UK relationship to deepen co-operation on shared global challenges.

The press release issued by 10 Downing Street on 13 September 2024.

Faron Paul is an anti-knife crime campaigner who has survived two knife attacks. On 9 September 2024, he attended the first annual Knife Crime Summit at Downing Street.

My motto is “if I can prevent one young person losing their life then it’s all worth it to me.”

I’ve been stabbed a total of 18 times on two separate occasions. One attack left me in a coma and I suffered severe nerve damage that required years of rehabilitation.

I had to rebuild my life physically, mentally and emotionally.

FazAmnesty, my organisation that helps young people hand in their knives with no questions asked, began with my mentoring work as well as doing online awareness videos on social media. Then one day a group of boys brought knives to my niece’s party and demanded entry.

I went down to the party and managed to take three knives from the boys in question.

It was then that I realised I had to find a way to make this an ongoing practice. Day by day, year by year FazAmnesty grew, and ever since then I’ve become inundated with requests for weapons collections and other services.

I remember one day in 2018 I got a phone call from a private number and it was Idris Elba’s PA. She told me that Idris was starting a campaign called ‘Don’t Stop Your Future’ and he wanted me to be a part of it.

24 hours later I was in Enfield with Idris conducting a weapons collection and ever since then we’ve kept up this close connection, working on various projects together.

This week’s roundtable feels like a positive move in the right direction in the fight against knife crime. It felt like there was a positive energy in the room with all the people involved.

I feel the policies put forward are helping to target key areas that need to be addressed if we want to reduce the impacts of knife crime. So, I’m happy to see these discussions formulating and witnessing so many organisations from different parts of society coming together to put actions in place.

The highlight for me was the fact that this event and the new coalition being introduced has happened within a really short time of the government being in power.

It almost feels like the work that I’ve done through FazAmnesty has got me to a position where I can be part of conversations such as these and it makes me feel proud of the work I’ve done.

I am both appreciative of, and humbled by, the government and the Elba Hope Foundation. They’ve given me the opportunity to share my work and make me part of the process, enabling me to work more effectively and help more young people.

The press release issued by 10 Downing Street on 12 September 2024.

Serena Wiebe is a campaigner, and boxing coach and mentor at Empire Fighting Chance. On Monday 9 September, she attended the first annual Knife Crime Summit at Downing Street.

Knife crime has impacted me in ways I can’t explain. It’s forced me to grow up and deal with situations I shouldn’t have had to deal with at such a young age.

I’m 20 now, but I’ve been losing friends constantly since I was 17. When I hear someone has been stabbed, I think: oh my god, is it someone in my family? Is it one of my friends?

Imagine you losing your child or your friend to a knife, and how damaging that is. Imagine not being able to see them again because their life has been taken from them by someone else. That has become my reality, it’s what I am used to now.

I originally started working with Empire Fighting Chance because my brother took his own life. We’re a charity which uses non-contact boxing to inspire young people to reach their full potential, and my journey with them started because I wanted to help young people who were in the same situation as him, and me.

Over time, I began losing more and more people in my life to knife crime. But the trigger for me was losing Eddie, one of my best friends growing up.

Eddie King Muthemba Kinuthia and I had been friends since we were three years old. We were always together. We went to the same nursery and primary school. For a while we went to the same secondary school. As we got older, we drifted slightly, but the love was still there.

He was a really kind person; everyone in our community knew him, and they knew him for the right things. Ever since he died, so many people he knew have tried to honour him in some way, because he was such an important person to so many, and such a good role model.

To have to speak about him in the past tense is crazy. I still can’t believe that he’s gone.

We’re still seeking justice for Eddie, but after losing him I thought, okay I need to do something. This is getting out of hand. I don’t want to see another person I love die.

Since then, I have continued to work with Empire and deliver boxing lessons for free every week to young men who may be involved in knife crime, drug dealing, or any situation that could lead to those things happening.

I work with various organisations which enable me to speak with young people about their experiences with the system and crime and what they would like to change, and I am starting my own youth group, where we come together every fortnight and talk about what we want to change, which I hope can grow and develop over time.

I believe we’re not hearing from young people enough.

We need to be inviting young people to events like today, to places like Downing Street, so they know that their voices are heard. I am so grateful for the opportunity I have been given, but we need to give more young people the platform to share their views.

Attending events like the Knife Crime Summit will help – even being invited has probably changed my life. If I look back to five years ago, I could have gone down a very different path where I was involved in knife crime.

A lot of the young people I work with ask me: “How did you go from there to where you are today?”

Just inviting one young person like me here could have a domino effect on other young people.

I believe it’s important for the right legislation to be in place – that change is good – but we need to focus on immediate action. It’s getting to the point where someone is dying every day.

In my opinion, it’s also about the little things we can do that don’t cost money. Around that table today there were so many role models – Idris Elba, the Prime Minister, loads of MPs – and it is so important to see them supporting organisations like mine, because it can inspire young people.

I was a young person who didn’t believe that I could do anything. Then I met Marvin Rees, who was Mayor of Bristol at the time, and Martin Bisp, the Chief Executive of Empire. They are the reason I am here today.

They showed me that I can come to places like this, I can speak about issues like this, and I can have that domino effect on other young people who feel they don’t have a voice.

The press release issued by 10 Downing Street on 11 September 2024.

The Prime Minister will pledge the ‘biggest reimagining of our NHS since its birth’ in a speech this morning [12 September 2024], following the publication today of a full and independent investigation into the state of the NHS.

The PM will pledge the ‘biggest reimagining of our NHS since its birth’ in a speech this morning [12 September 2024], following the publication today of a full and independent investigation into the state of the NHS.

Lord Ara Darzi’s probe has concluded the service is in a ‘critical condition’ amidst surging waiting lists and a deterioration in the nation’s underlying health, identifying serious and widespread problems for people accessing services.

The PM will say that the scale of the damage done to the NHS revealed by the report is “unforgivable”, recognising the tragic consequences for too many patients and their families:

People have every right to be angry. It’s not just because the NHS is so personal to all of us – it’s because some of these failings are life and death.

Take the waiting times in A&E. That’s not just a source of fear and anxiety – it’s leading to avoidable deaths.

People’s loved ones who could have been saved. Doctors and nurses whose whole vocation is to save them – hampered from doing so. It’s devastating.

He will also address the causes behind the state of the NHS, including the long term impacts of the 2012 Health and Social Care Act which is described in the report as “a calamity without international precedent” which “proved disastrous”, as well as the far reaching consequences of underinvestment throughout the 2010s. The PM is expected to say:

Our NHS went into the pandemic in a much more fragile state.

We had higher bed-occupancy rates, fewer doctors, fewer nurses and fewer beds than most other high income health systems in the world.

And let’s be clear about what caused that…a “scorched earth” approach to health reform, the effects of which are still felt to this day.

Lord Darzi describes [the 2010s] as “the most austere decade since the NHS was founded”. Crumbling buildings, decrepit portacabins, mental health patients accommodated in Victorian-era cells infested with vermin.

The 2010s were a lost decade for our NHS…which left the NHS unable to be there for patients today, and totally unprepared for the challenges and opportunities of tomorrow.

As well as recognising the cost to people’s health, the PM will also address the inextricable link between the state of the NHS and the nation’s economy:

It’s not just the state of our National Health Service in crisis – it’s also the state of our national health.

There are 2.8 million people economically inactive due to long term sickness, and more than half of those on the current waiting lists for inpatient treatment are working age adults.

Getting people back to health and work will not only reduce the costs on the NHS, it will drive economic growth – in turn creating more tax receipts to fund public services.

In the face of these dire findings and the growing pressures on the NHS from an ageing society and preventable illnesses, the PM will set out his belief in the ‘profound responsibility’ of government to do the hard work necessary to tackle them:

What we need is the courage to deliver long-term reform – major surgery not sticking plaster solutions.

The NHS is at a fork in the road, and we have a choice about how it should meet these rising demands.

Raise taxes on working people to meet the ever-higher costs of aging population – or reform to secure its future.

We know working people can’t afford to pay more, so it’s reform or die.

Rooted in Lord Darzi’s diagnoses of the challenges facing the NHS, the PM will outline three fundamental areas of reform and the imperative to work with staff and patients throughout this process. He is expected to say:

This government is working at pace to build a Ten-Year Plan. Something so different from anything that has come before.

Instead of the top-down approach of the past, this plan is going to have the fingerprints of NHS staff and patients all over it.

And as we build it together, I want to frame this plan around three big shifts – first, moving from an analogue to a digital NHS. A tomorrow service not just a today service.

Second, we’ve got to shift more care from hospitals to communities… And third, we’ve got to be much bolder in moving from sickness to prevention.

Only fundamental reform and a plan for the long term can turn around the NHS and build a healthy society. It won’t be easy or quick. But I know we can do it.

The challenge is clear before us; the change could amount to the biggest reimagining of our NHS since its birth.

Lord Darzi is an independent peer and practising surgeon with 30 years’ experience in the NHS. He examined over 600 pieces of analysis from DHSC, NHS England and external organisations during his investigation. His report will inform the government’s 10-year plan to reform the health service.

Lord Darzi said:

Although I have worked in the NHS for more than 30 years, I have been shocked by what I have found during this investigation – not just in the health service but in the state of the nation’s health.

We want to deliver high quality care for all but far too many people are waiting for too long and in too many clinical areas, quality of care has gone backwards.

My colleagues in the NHS are working harder than ever but our productivity has fallen.

We get caught up frantically trying to find beds that have been axed or using IT that is outdated or trying to work out how to get things done because operational processes are overwhelmed. It sucks the joy from our work – we became clinicians to help patients get better, not to go into battle with a broken system.

We need to rebalance the system towards care in the community rather than adding more and more staff to hospitals. And we need a more honest conversation about performance – the NHS is now an open book.

In the last 15 years, the NHS was hit by three shocks – austerity and starvation of investment, confusion caused by top-down reorganisation, and then the pandemic which came with resilience at an all-time low. Two out of three of those shocks were choices made in Westminster.

It took more than a decade for the NHS to fall into disrepair so it’s going to take time to fix it. But we in the NHS have turned things around before, and I’m confident we will do it again.

Despite the damning analysis, Lord Darzi insists the NHS’s vital signs ‘remain strong’ and he praised staff for their ‘shared passion and determination to make the NHS better for our patients’.

In carrying out the review, Lord Darzi brought more than 70 organisations together in an Expert Reference Group and sought input from NHS staff and patients through focus groups and frontline visits.

Responding to the report, Secretary of State Wes Streeting said:

I asked Lord Darzi to tell hard truths about the state of the NHS. He has produced an honest, expert, comprehensive report on the appalling state our health service is in.

Today’s findings will inform our 10-year plan to radically reform the NHS and get patients treated on time again.

The damage done to the NHS has been more than a decade in the making. We clearly have a long road ahead. But while the NHS is broken, it’s not beaten. We will turn the NHS around so it is there for you when you need it, once again.

Today’s report has been welcomed by NHS England and health organisations who have pledged to work closely with the government on its mission to rebuild the NHS.

Amanda Pritchard, NHS England Chief Executive, said:

As this report sets out, staff are the beating heart of the NHS with a shared passion and determination for making the NHS better for patients – but it is also clear they are facing unprecedented challenges.

Our staff are treating record numbers of patients every day despite ageing equipment and crumbling buildings, a surge in multiple long-term illnesses, and managing the long-lasting effects of the pandemic.

While teams are working hard to get services back on track, it is clear waiting times across many services are unacceptable and we need to address the underlying issues outlined in Lord Darzi’s report so we can deliver the care we all want for patients.

As Lord Darzi rightly points out, many of the solutions can be found in parts of the NHS today. That is why we are fully committed to working with government to create a 10-year plan for healthcare to ensure the NHS recovers from Covid, strengthens its foundations and continues to reform so it is fit for future generations.

Key findings from Lord Darzi’s 142-page report include:

• Deterioration: The health of the nation has deteriorated over the past 15 years, with a substantial increase in the number of people living with multiple long-term conditions.
• Spending: Too great a share of the NHS budget is being spent in hospitals, too little in the community, and productivity is too low.
• Waiting times: Waiting lists have swelled and waiting times have surged, with A&E queues more than doubling from an average of just under 40 people on a typical evening in April 2009 to over 100 in April 2024. 1 in 10 patients are now waiting for 12 hours or more.
• Cancer care: The UK has appreciably higher cancer mortality rates than other countries, with no progress whatsoever made in diagnosing cancer at stage one and two between 2013 and 2021.
• Lasting damage: The Health and Social Care Act of 2012 did lasting damage to the management capacity and capability of the NHS. It took 10 years to return to a sensible structure, and the effects continue to be felt to this day.
• Productivity: Too many resources have been being poured into hospitals where productivity had substantially fallen, while too little has been spent in the community.

The press release issued by 10 Downing Street on 11 September 2024.

Dr Lynne Baird MBE set up the Daniel Baird Foundation after her son was killed in 2017. On Monday 9 September, she attended the first annual Knife Crime Summit at Downing Street.

Daniel had got a new job on the day he died.

He was a very happy go lucky lad and that day he was particularly full of joy – he’d been after that role for a long time and had finally passed the interview stage.

“I’ll be able to get married now, Mum”, he said. “I’ll be able to get a mortgage and do everything I planned.”

He said he wouldn’t be out for long when he went out that night to celebrate, but I never saw him again.

I found out on a Saturday morning. I hadn’t been able to sleep for some reason. I remember the sun was very bright, it was a beautiful sunrise – but I had an uneasy feeling. I heard a car door outside, and I looked out the window. There was a police car and a female officer walking towards the door. I had the most awful feeling. She didn’t need to say anything.

“Are you Dan Baird’s mum,” she asked.

I said yes and she told me I needed to get to the hospital quickly, and to phone any other family members who should be there. That was it, she didn’t give me any more information.

By the time we got to the hospital it was too late.

The days following were awful. I don’t remember very much – I think I was in shock – but it was like someone had stuffed my head full of cotton wool, I couldn’t even hear properly.

At this point I had already started asking questions. What more could have been done to save Daniel after he had been stabbed? I think asking questions was the only thing that kept me sane.

I asked Dan’s brother, Tom, who is a doctor at the hospital Dan was taken to that night, what more could have been done for him.

He told me that if someone who knew what to do in case of a severe bleed had been there, or there had been some special equipment there he could have saved Dan, there might have been a different outcome.

Daniel died in the early hours of July 8th, 2017. We didn’t get his body back until the 13th of September 2017, and by November of that year we had the first bleed control kit in this country.

I was relentless. I spoke to everybody I possibly could. At first, it felt like nobody wanted to give me answers. It was very difficult, but you must do these things right.

In the end, I managed to get an interview with the Chief Executive of West Midlands Ambulance at the time, who agreed that there should be an advanced first aid kit to control severe bleeds available for members of the public.

It was decided they would develop a bleed control kit now available in various locations worldwide. They contain very simple components which can be used to stop severe bleeding, and they save lives.

The kits are designed so that in the event of an emergency, you don’t need any training to know what to do. That has always been the foundation of our campaign, and it has grown from there. We’ve worked with the police and fire service and have done lots of work with our local MP, Jess Phillips.

The West Midlands has developed a very advanced model, where a person can call the emergency services, say there has been a severe bleed, be directed to their nearest kit and given instructions on how to use it.

Severe bleeds can happen all the time – in workplaces, car accidents and dog attacks – and if there had been one available when Daniel was stabbed, things might have been very different for him and our family.

It’s always positive to get certain people round the table, as we did today, and I agree with many of the points made – primarily that prevention needs to start very early on in primary school, because by the time children reach secondary school it’s often difficult to reach them.

I believe that legislation announced by the Prime Minister is a step in the right direction – though we must always keep doing more.

The press release issued by 10 Downing Street on 11 September 2024.

We’re giving greater rights and protections to people renting their homes.

New laws will ban unfair no-fault evictions and help protect tenants from discriminatory treatment and poor living conditions.

Our Renters’ Rights Bill will put an end to bad practices, such as landlords and letting agents forcing bidding wars to drive up rents, and unreasonable mid-tenancy rent increases often used to force out tenants.

This Bill will overhaul the private rented sector in England, with the government determined to address the insecurity and injustice that far too many renters experience, by:

Ending no fault evictions

More than 11 million people in England live day in, day out with the knowledge that they could be uprooted from their home with little notice and no justification.

Our new Bill will end Section 21 ‘no fault’ evictions for new and existing tenancies, giving all private renters security and assurance.

The Bill will give renters much greater stability – so they can build lives in their communities, and reduce the risk of homelessness.

End bidding wars and mid-tenancy price increases

We will empower tenants to challenge rent increases designed to force them out by the backdoor and introduce new laws to end the practice of rental bidding wars by landlords and letting agents.

This Bill will crack down on those who exploit the housing crisis by forcing tenants to bid for their properties. Landlords and letting agents will be legally required to publish an asking rent for their property. They will also be banned from asking for, encouraging, or accepting any bids above this price.

It’ll also ban in-tenancy rent increases written into contracts to prevent landlords implementing too high rents mid-tenancy, often to push out the current tenants. Under these reforms, landlords will only be allowed to raise the rent once a year, and to the market rate.

Greater rights and protection

The Renters’ Rights Bill will make it illegal for landlords to discriminate against tenants in receipt of benefits, or with children when choosing to let their property – so no family is discriminated against and denied a home when they need it.

It’ll also apply ‘Awaab’s Law’ to the sector, setting clear legal expectations about the timeframes within which landlords must make sure homes containing serious hazards are safe.

The new Bill will also give tenants the right to request a pet, which landlords must consider and cannot unreasonably refuse.

It will also apply a Decent Homes Standard to the private rented sector. This will make sure that homes are safe, secure and hazard free.

The press release issued by 10 Downing Street on 10 September 2024.

Pooja’s son Ronan was fatally stabbed in 2022. On Monday 9 September, Pooja attended the first annual Knife Crime Summit at Downing Street.

Within seconds, my whole life was shattered.

I miss talking to him. I miss hugging him, hearing his giggles, his laugh, his loud noise, his cheeky look in his eyes.

It’s horrifying to know that a beautiful child of yours – a good person, a good human being – has been taken by something so cruel and for no reason. Because they mistook him for somebody else.

On the evening of 29th June 2022, Ronan went to play snooker with his friend. It was the first time he’d gone out after finishing his GCSEs. It was a treat.

I was out of the house at a meditation class. My neighbour, who was at the class with me, got a call. I got up, hearing the commotion.

“What’s happened?” I asked.

“There’s been a stabbing on our street, we need to get home,” she replied.

I didn’t know then that it was my own child. You don’t think it can happen to you.

I remember ringing Ronan, but he wasn’t picking up the phone. That’s not like Ronan – Ronan knows, he knows me, he knows to answer. But he didn’t.

My husband was at home, so I rang him and asked him to go outside to find out what was happening. He told me that Ronan had popped out for five minutes to go to his friend’s house. We both agreed to phone Ronan to tell him to get home as soon as possible.

My husband rang back crying.

“It’s Ronan, Pooja. They’re saying it’s an Asian-Indian boy.”

The perpetrators had stabbed him in his abdomen, 20 centimetres deep with a 20 inch Ninja sword. When he turned around, they stabbed him again with a Ninja sword that went through his heart. The blood was pouring out of his body.

He tried running home, but he collapsed two doors away from his house.

On my way from class, I remember asking my friend to drive me quicker and I jumped out of the moving car. Running towards the police taped area and begging the police officers to let me through, to let me hold my child.

Even though the paramedics tried to operate to save him, my Ronan died on the very street he grew up. He didn’t stand a chance.

An innocent child walking home. Murdered, just like that.

In the court case, we found out how the online sale of these threatening bladed articles played a massive role in my son’s murder. Since then, we have been and will continue fighting for a ban on machetes, zombie knives, Ninja swords and other bladed weapons. There is no need for these deadly knives to be in our society. In the wrong hands they are lethal weapons.

For each murder that happens, there have been clear failures in our system. Ronan’s murder happened because a Ninja sword was bought using a parent’s credit card with no ID checks. We also hear about the failures within the education system, within the policing system, within online sales and more. Now all these failures are being addressed so we can start correcting them.

We’re going down the right path.

If it takes a bit of time, so be it. But we need to understand that this needs to be dealt with from now on.

I would like to thank Sir Keir Starmer, the Home Secretary Yvette Cooper, Idris Elba and my MP Pat McFadden. These are the people who are passionate about this issue and do want to make a difference. So, thank you to them.

I feel very grateful to be here, so I can share my child’s story and can fight for him. I feel like there are other people who don’t get heard.

What happened to Ronan should never have happened. My Ronan was a good, funny, humble, charismatic, intelligent and kind boy. He was every mother’s dream son.

From his school, a mother approached me to tell me how Ronan stopped their child getting bullied – now that child remembers my child and was heartbroken to learn what had happened.

He was a beautiful person and he was too good for this world. I apologise to him every morning for bringing him into this cruel world and not being able to protect him. So, this is my way of doing something for him.

Ronan’s Law will be a strong move and bring, I hope, much-needed change. Banning these weapons should be the basic start to combatting knife crime.

In my son’s memory, I have a tattoo on my arm of his heartbeat – the words underneath say: ‘Mom is proud of you, Ronan’ and his name is in his own writing. His mantra was to make me proud.

I’d give my life today for Ronan, if I could. I wish I gave my heart to him to save him. Every child deserves to grow up safely and I wish my son had this opportunity. I am the proud mother of Ronan Kanda.

I’m just a mother fighting for what’s right.

The press release issued by 10 Downing Street on 9 September 2024.

Yemi’s son Andre was fatally stabbed in 2016. Today she attended the first annual Knife Crime Summit at Downing Street.

When your child falls down and grazes their knee, and they’re crying for you, you pick them up. You wash it off, you bandage it, and you kiss it better for them.

But when Andre was stabbed, it was the first time that I couldn’t do anything.

They wouldn’t let me near him, or see him, but everyone told me that he was calling for his mum.

It was 2016 when I got a phone call from one of Andre’s friend’s mums, telling me someone had been stabbed. I had only just dropped him off at their house, but I could tell straight away that something was wrong by the tone of her voice. I kept asking her who it was as I got my shoes on.

“They don’t know, but they’re saying it’s Andre.”

I begged her to go and look. She didn’t want to, but I needed to know. Then she let out a scream that I’ll never forget. It went right through my body.

I didn’t say anymore, I jumped in the car and drove to the house. It was a hot summer’s day and there were people everywhere, sitting on the grass. I saw the air ambulance and the cordoned off roads and ran down the length of the street to see the paramedics and police gathered. I didn’t know what to do, so we just waited.

He didn’t die there, he died at the hospital.

We’d been waiting so long for news when staff finally came and asked us what injuries he’d sustained that evening. All I could say was: “Is he dead? Is he gone?”

When they said yes, the bottom dropped off my entire world.

I knew I couldn’t crumble; I had to stay strong because I had to support my family – my mum and other children, but it was a real battle every day to hold everything together and keep going.

Before his death, I didn’t fully realise the impact Andre had on his community. I always knew he was a protector – he loved his friends and family. But there was an outpouring of grief from those around him; people saying he stood up for them at school or protected them from being bullied. That was his nature.

Andre was funny. Everybody loved him; he was the first boy in a family of girls, and he stole my mum’s heart. He didn’t take things too seriously. He was academic and learned quickly. He loved sport, music, and football. I feel very proud of him.

I think that when you lose a child, everybody contacts you. There’s this period where everyone wants to know what’s going on, and particularly because Andre’s trial was very publicised, lots of people wanted to talk to me.

I fell into various projects, including planning a nationwide march against youth violence with a friend of mine, who had also lost a loved one. That was how I got started. I began going to different meetings and working with the police, but it got to a stage where it started to take over my life.

I had lost Andre, and it was like I had no life anymore, because I used to feel guilty. I felt guilty for smiling, for going out, for enjoying something – just living. I decided to write a book. I’m not much of a writer; it was just an outpouring of a mother’s grief.

It helped me jump from the place I was into the next place and think: do you know what? Andre would want me to start living again. He would want me to focus on his brothers and carry on doing the work I was doing, but in my way.

I’m a secondary school teacher, so after I wrote my book, I left mainstream school to work in a Pupil Referral Unit. I wanted to support those children who were at risk of exclusion; the ones who need that help to have that second chance. So even though I’m no longer out campaigning and banging on doors, I am doing the work on the ground trying to make a difference everyday.

When I heard about Idris Elba’s ‘Don’t Stop Your Future’ campaign, I had made a point of passing on the baton and not doing it anymore, but I thought: This is Idris Elba – he has a huge profile, which will keep everybody focused – young people are my passion, I’ll do one more.

I think it’s good to talk, and I believe that we need to take some of the individual things raised in today’s round table and consider how they might look, especially from an educational perspective.

We need to focus on what previsions we are putting in place for youths and have a joined-up approach, to make sure we’re intervening early on. We need to make sure we’re not  criminalising, but having clear guidelines for first offenders.

I read serious case reviews every time I see that a young person has lost their life to knife crime and it’s the same story repeatedly, so we know what the issues are.

I think it’s good for the people who are living through this, day in and day out, to come together and give their ideas and their thoughts; because it cannot be led by one person. We need the strength of the Government, but without the voice of the people, we can’t expect them to get this right.

We need the voices of those who have experienced this, those who have been involved as victims or perpetrators, and come out the other side, to tell the stories of what has gone wrong for them, so we can work out how to make this better.

The press release issued by 10 Downing Street on 7 September 2024.

The Prime Minister met Taoiseach Simon Harris at Farmleigh House in Dublin this afternoon.

The Prime Minister thanked the Taoiseach for his invitation, noting that this was the first visit of a UK Prime Minister to Ireland in five years.

Both leaders shared their personal commitment to an ambitious reset of the UK and Ireland’s relationship. They noted the existing ties between our two countries, but agreed they wanted to go even further – in particular on trade and investment to help boost growth and deliver on behalf of the British and Irish people.

In that vein, they agreed to host the first UK-Ireland summit in March next year, which will take forward co-operation in key areas of mutual interest such as security, climate, trade and culture.

They both strongly condemned recent scenes of violent disorder in England and Ireland and agreed to deepen their collaboration on how we tackle the spread of the online misinformation which fuelled the thuggery.

They looked forward to watching the Republic of Ireland vs England Nations’ League football match this evening.