I am calling on the Home Secretary, Alan Johnson, to introduce compulsory age checks on online knife sales.

I have been campaigning for measures to make it harder for under-18s to buy knifes and have been working with retailers in my constituency to build awareness of the government's Knife Crime Pledge. Shops can sign up to the pledge and display signs which show that they are taking steps to ensure they're not selling knives to children.

However, I don't think that the action doesn't go far enough with online sales with only a handful of retailers taking action to remove knives for sale on the internet completely and others simply ask for confirmation that the buyer is 18 but with no checks in place. I have asked the government to introduce Tesco's policy of enforcing ID checks on delivery as compulsory.

It's vital that we take really tough action to make sure that knives aren't falling into the wrong hands. Checks online are just not stringent enough and although it's hard to police what's being sold on the internet, measures can be put in place and it needs to be done urgently.