Children as young as 12 are buying and selling knives online, with some even setting up informal businesses trading weapons, according to the UK government.
Sarah Jones raised concerns about the growing trend while speaking at the launch of the National Knife Crime Centre in Bloomsbury, central London.
Jones warned that the rise of online marketplaces and social media has created new opportunities for illegal activity involving young people. She said: “If you look at the current landscape with young people encouraged to set up their own business to buy and sell online, to buy clothes, sell them, make profit, within that landscape, criminals have come into that and gone ‘OK, you can do this by buying and selling knives’.
“And so [the government] have to be on top of that, and we have to come down very hard on that.”
The government is now considering stronger measures to restrict access to knives, including the possible introduction of a licensing system for sellers and importers.
Jones said: “It is too easy to be able to buy and sell and receive knives in this country, and we need to keep pushing to do more.”
She added: “There could be a licence regime which licenses who can sell knives and who can’t and what the purpose could be for.”
Officials say any new laws would still allow legitimate uses, such as for certain sports or professional activities.
According to the Office for National Statistics, police-recorded knife crime fell by 9 per cent last year, with 50,430 offences recorded in England and Wales in the year to September 2025.
The newly established National Knife Crime Centre aims to help police identify and disrupt the online sale of weapons, often referred to as the “grey market”.
Campaigners have stressed the human cost of knife crime. Nikita Kanda, whose teenage brother was killed in 2022 with a weapon bought online, urged stronger action.
She said: “The online sale of dangerous weapons is something that should never be taken lightly. We know young people have been targeted online, and that means weapons are not harmless objects.
“They are being used to enable, inflict and escalate violence, and that is why decisive action is so important.”
The government is progressing new measures through Parliament aimed at tackling knife crime and related offences, including proposals to provide earlier intervention for young people found carrying weapons.
The plans reflect growing concern over how easily weapons can be accessed online, particularly by children, and underline calls for stricter regulation and enforcement.