Anyone caught carrying a knife in public should be sent to jail, Conservative leader David Cameron says.

Prime Minister Gordon Brown has argued that anyone over 16 caught with an illegal knife should be prosecuted, rather than escaping with a caution.

But Mr Cameron says the presumption should be that anyone convicted of carrying a knife should go to prison.

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Mr Cameron's comments come after a number of high-profile knife murders have seen 18 young people die in London alone this year.

'No excuse'

According to Home Office figures, 17% of people prosecuted for carrying a knife went to prison in 2006, compared with 6% in 1996. The average sentence length has increased by almost a third over the same period.

Mr Cameron says knife crime is now a problem of "epidemic proportions" in the UK.

"We have to send the strongest possible message that carrying a knife is completely unacceptable in Britain, end of subject," he told The Sun.

"The government should not just say there is a presumption you will be prosecuted if you carry a knife - but that there is a presumption you will go to jail.

"It is not a minor offence. There is no excuse for carrying a knife when you walk out of your door."

The Tory leader urged police to exercise "common sense" by not prosecuting people carrying penknives for angling, or for bringing home kitchen or garden equipment from the shops.

"This is about kitchen knives stuffed down the front of tracksuits," he said.

"We're talking about mainly young people carrying knives as part of a culture. That culture has to stop."

Debate

Mr Cameron has previously prompted headlines suggesting he wanted to "hug a hoodie" when he argued there should be greater understanding for young people.

But he added: "When they step over the line, I'm a Tory. I believe in tough responses, in the law coming down on people like a ton of bricks."

Mr Cameron is set to address the issue during a speech in Glasgow on "fixing our broken society".

He is being accompanied by ex-Tory leader Iain Duncan Smith, chairman of the Centre for Social Justice, and the Tories' Glasgow East by-election candidate, Davena Rankin.

Meanwhile Home Office Minister Tony McNulty says he wants a debate over how much detail can be released by the NHS on knife crime.

Casualty

At the moment gunshot wounds have to be reported to police, stab wounds do not have to be reported.

It follows an investigation by the Independent on Sunday which suggested that almost 14,000 people a year have become victims of knife attacks in Britain and there has been a massive rise in hospital admissions.

Mr McNulty says the figures must be made clear - despite problems with privacy.

"I know again there is a balance between an individual's privacy in terms of turning up at a casualty and the national health system providing those figures so that we all know the full extent of knife injuries," he told the Adam Boulton show on Sky News.

"And I think there really should be a debate about that and one that I am trying to pursue with my health colleagues."

(BBC)

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