review of online knife sales<\/a> was published and
\nmade various recommendations. The government accepted the
\nrecommendations on stronger age verification for online sales and
\ndelivery of knives and retailers reporting bulk purchases of knives
\nonline, and introduced legislation in the Crime and Policing Bill,
\ncurrently going through Parliament.<\/p>\nOne of the review’s other recommendations concerned the
\nintroduction of a registration scheme for sellers of knives,
\nrequiring the buyer to be recorded, retained and made available to
\nlaw enforcement upon request. The review also recommended the
\nintroduction of import licensing to control the importation of
\nknives from overseas.<\/p>\n
Licensing scheme for sellers<\/p>\n
Therefore, the government is proposing introducing registration
\nthrough a licensing scheme for sales of knives and bladed articles.
\nIt would apply to both business and private sellers selling knives
\nand bladed articles. It thinks that the best body to administer the
\nlicensing system for knife and bladed article sellers is the police
\nas they have the relevant experience of running the firearms
\nlicensing scheme. Where the seller is a larger business, or not
\njust an individual seller, the government proposes that the
\nbusiness would need to have a designated licence holder, similar to
\nan alcohol designated premises supervisor.<\/p>\n
The licensing system for knives and bladed articles will be
\nself-funding and on a full cost recovery basis, being funded
\nthrough the fees payable by licence holders. The licence will need
\nto be renewed every three years, which will incur a renewal
\nfee.<\/p>\n
Suitability checks would include the police conducting
\nbackground checks on the individual such as whether they have a
\ncriminal record and whether they have any other intelligence on the
\nindividual which is relevant, such as evidence of dishonesty.<\/p>\n
It would be a criminal offence to sell a knife or bladed article
\nwithout the relevant licence to do so. Where a seller is found to
\nbe selling without a licence, they may be subject to enforcement
\naction.<\/p>\n
Importation licences<\/p>\n
The government also proposes introducing licences to import
\nknives and bladed articles. This is because any regulation on the
\nUK market could encourage people to look to buy from sellers based
\nabroad and therefore, import licensing would be important in
\npreventing circumvention of sellers’ licensing. It would be a
\ncriminal offence to import any knife or bladed article without an
\nimport licence. Where imports are found to be made without a
\nlicence, the individual or business importing the knife or bladed
\narticle may be subject to enforcement action.<\/p>\n
The government intends that the proposed changes would also make
\nit easier for the police and Trading Standards to identify where
\nknives have come from and check sellers’ compliance with knife
\nlegislation.<\/p>\n
The consultation ends on 24 February 2026.<\/p>\n
The content of this article is intended to provide a general
\nguide to the subject matter. Specialist advice should be sought
\nabout your specific circumstances.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Lewis Silkin are most popular:
within Cannabis & Hemp, Law Practice Management and Criminal Law topic(s)
in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":15222,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,57,58,50,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-325841","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-kingdom","tag-gb","tag-great-britain","tag-greatbritain","tag-news","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/325841","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=325841"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/325841\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15222"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=325841"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=325841"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=325841"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}