Labour's claim knife crime costs the NHS £500m a year is slammed as 'a deception'

Published on Tuesday 19 April 2011 18:04

A CLAIM by Labour Party leaders that knife crime costs the NHS £500 million a year was described as a "deception" last night, as it emerged the figure was based on an estimate for the cost to hospitals of all violence in Scotland, not just those attacked with a blade.

Party leader Iain Gray and finance spokesman Andy Kerr have both said in recent days that knife attacks are costing the NHS 500m a year, as they sought to press home their plan to impose a mandatory prison sentence for carrying a knife

But it emerged yesterday that the figure, produced by Scotland's national Violence Reduction Unit, was actually an estimate on the cost of all violence to hospitals. Its report, Reducing Violence: An Alliance for a Safer Future, estimated the cost to be between 258m and 517m.

The VRU said last night that it had no figures for the cost of knife crime in Scotland.

The SNP, meanwhile, pointed to a parliamentary question in February to Labour's justice spokesman, Richard Baker, in which he was informed that there were no official estimates on the cost of knife crime.

With Mr Baker coming under growing pressure, the Nationalists accused him of attempting to mislead voters, and claimed Labour's policy on knife crime was descending into "chaos and disarray". However, Labour said they would not be deflected from pursuing their bid to lock up anyone found with a knife.

Mr Baker was forced to defend the 500m figure in a television interview after one independent statistician claimed that the actual cost was likely to be no more than 10m to the NHS.

He replied that the 500m estimate had emerged after a conference organised by the group Medics Against Violence. He also cited the VRU saying it had made "similar assessments" on the costs of knife crime to the NHS which, he said, ran into "hundreds of millions of pounds".

However, Dr Christine Goodall, a consultant surgeon, from Medics Against Violence, said yesterday that she had no knowledge of the figure. "I don't know where Richard Baker got it from."

A spokeswoman for the VRU said that the 500m estimate had come from its own study into the cost of violence. That report concluded: "The health service bears a significant burden from violence. Conservative estimates from England and Wales suggest that 3 to 6 per cent of the annual health service budget is used in the treatment of outcomes of violence. This equates to an annual cost of between 258m - 517m in Scotland."

A spokeswoman added: "You can take knives off people and they can still be violent."

Two weeks ago, Labour's finance spokesman, Andy Kerr, warned that "500m, 3 to 6 per cent of the NHS budget" was being "spent on people coming into A&E with knife injuries." The figure was also been quoted by Mr Gray and by several Labour party figures in relation to knife crime over the course of the past year.

But in a statement, Mr Baker sought to turn the attention back on to the party's core policy of sending anyone carrying a knife to jail.

He said: "Knife murders in Strathclyde increased by 56 per cent in the past year and people are sick of an SNP government that puts money before saving lives. The sad reality is that well-respected reports show that the cost to the NHS of violence in Scotland is astronomical."

The SNP's Fergus Ewing said last night: "Labour's policy on knife crime has descended into chaos and disarray. They are not just making up policy - they are making up the numbers. Their knife crime policy is a deception."