Home Secretary to meet police chiefs after two stabbings
Yousef Makki, 17, from Burnage was killed 24 hours after another teenager was stabbed to death in London.
Sajid Javid will meet police chiefs later this week to talk about violent crime amid a series of brutal stabbings around the country.
The Home Secretary will chair the Chief Constables roundtable following the deaths of two teenagers.
17-year-old Yousef Makki from Burnage was stabbed to death in Hale Barns, near Altrincham, on Saturday evening. The Manchester Grammar School student's death came just 24 hours after 17-year-old girl scout Jodie Chesney was killed in east London on Friday night.
The incidents follow three teenagers dying in knife attacks in two weeks in Birmingham, leading to West Midlands Police and Crime Commissioner David Jamieson branding it a "national emergency''.
Hazrat Umar, 17, was killed in Bordesley Green on Monday; Abdullah Muhammad, 16, died in Small Heath the previous week, and seven days earlier Sidali Mohamed, 16, was stabbed outside a college in Highgate.
Mr Javid said: "Young people are being murdered across the country and it can't go on.
"We're taking action on many fronts and I'll be meeting police chiefs this week to hear what more can be done.
"It is vital that we unite to stop this senseless violence.''
The Home Office said it set out a range of actions to tackle violent crime in October including a £200 million youth endowment fund.
It also consulted on a new legal duty to underpin a public health approach to tackling serious violence, and an independent review of drug misuse.
An extra #970 million in police funding is proposed in the funding settlement for 2019-20, the Home Office said.
It added that the Offensive Weapons Bill currently before Parliament will introduce new offences to tackle knife crime and acid attacks.
The Home Office also said the serious violence taskforce, chaired by the Home Secretary and including other ministers, MPs, police leaders and the London Mayor, meets regularly to oversee and drive delivery of the serious violence strategy.
The strategy, published last year, focuses on steering young people away from a life of crime, while continuing to promote a strong law enforcement response, it added.
Health and Social Care Secretary Matt Hancock disputed a previous suggestion by London Mayor Sadiq Khan that knife crime was a "public health issue''.
"It's a crime issue. People stabbing people, first and foremost, is a crime and you've got to hold the perpetrators to justice and accountable,'' he told LBC.
"If you try to say that it's a public health issue that implies that it's nobody's fault. The criminals who are murderers, it's their fault and that's got to be the starting point.
"Now we should take a broad approach to how we tackle it, looking at all of the different causes and all the actions that we can take and Sadiq Khan himself could do with taking some actions here in London.''