Tory peer Seb Coe blames soaring knife crime on big cuts to youth services

‘We’ve strangled the life out of the youth services in this country, yet we are surprised that we have big problems in our inner cities,’ Tory peer protests

Olympic legend Sebastian Coe has become the most high-profile Conservative to warn savage cuts to youth services are behind soaring levels of knife crime.

The Tory peer lashed out at his government for failing to recognise the “bloody obvious” that properly funded activities are “the most potent social worker in any community”.

In a powerful TV interview, Lord Coe linked youth service cuts – 70 per cent since the Conservatives came into power, according to Labour – to the rising number of fatal stabbings.

“It’s still not funded properly. We’ve strangled the life out of the youth services in this country, yet we are surprised that we have big problems in our inner cities,” the multiple gold-medal winner warned.

“Politicians, they still really don’t get that. They don’t understand what sport is doing at community level.”

Lord Coe, speaking to ITV documentary Run For Your Life, to be broadcast at 10.45pm on Tuesday, added: “It’s so bloody obvious and yet we’re still sitting in the same forums, the same conventions and nobody’s actually grabbing it and saying, ‘This can make a massive and a huge difference’.

“You need to incentivise it. Can you afford not to do it? No you can’t, so you find the money.”

The interview comes amid growing anger about the levels of knife crime, which Sajid Javid, the home secretary, likened to an “outbreak of some virulent disease”.

There were 285 homicides caused by a knife or sharp instrument in England and Wales in 2017-18 – the highest number since records started in 1946.

In the year to September, police recorded around 1.5 million “violence against the person” offences – a jump of nearly a fifth on the previous 12 months.

Most attention has focused on a 19 per cent fall in police funding between 2010-11 and 2018-19, a period when the number of police officers plummeted by 20,000.

However, Labour research found £880m of cuts to youth service spending since 2010 – £70 per child – and that half of councils has cut spending per young person by more than three-quarters.

Lord Coe, a former Conservative MP and aide to William Hague when party leader, backed a new campaign to get a PE teacher installed into every primary school.

It has been launched by Connie Henry, whose Track Academy organisation is the focus of the documentary, offering young people alternatives to being drawn into crime and gang culture.

Sir Keith Mills, deputy chair of the London 2012 Olympics organising committee, blamed the rise in gang violence on young people being starved of youth sports clubs.

“The increase in knife crime and violent crime that we are seeing is a result of the fact that we have a lot of young people who are not as engaged as they should be,” he said.

“I do find it puzzling I guess, that government spend billions on funding the consequences and spend very little on the root causes.”