Fatal stabbings have reached a record level in England and Wales this year, with five people a week being killed with a knife or sharp instrument, according to figures published today.

The surge in fatalities comes despite a drive by the Government and police to reduce attacks involving knives, particularly in large urban areas.

In London alone the number of knife fatalities this year has jumped to 86 - a rise of one quarter on the figure for 2007.

Today’s figures from all except one of the police forces in England and Wales show that fatal stabbings have risen by almost a third since Labour came to power.

James Brokenshire, a Conservative home affairs spokesman who received the figures under freedom of information laws, said: “Knife crime is a scourge which claims too many lives and ruins countless others.

“Yet under Labour it has soared. The Government’s only response is short-term, ad hoc police operations, the results of which they spin and manipulate anyway to try to get a good story.”

He added: “Combating knife crime requires concerted action in the long and short term, not just spin. As well as deploying our police on to the streets as the norm we would introduce an automatic presumption of jail for knife possession. This may be harsh but it is absolutely necessary.”

Overall there have been 277 fatal stabbings in England and Wales so far this year - equivalent to five a week - and an increase of 19 on the total figure for last year. When Labour came to power, fatal stabbings were running at an average rate of 3.8 a week.

Over the past year there have been increases in the number of stabbings in London, Northumbria, West Yorkshire and Lancashire. In Northumbria and West Yorkshire fatal stabbings rose by a half to 15 and in Lancashire they more than trebled to 13.

In spite of the increases, as a proportion of all homicides, deaths caused by a knife or other sharp instrument have remained broadly stable for the past 30 years. Thirty-three per cent of homicides in 1977 were a result of stabbing compared with 35 per cent this year. The proportion peaked at 39 per cent in 1986.

Historically knife crime has been concentrated in certain parts of Britain. A study published earlier this year based on death certificates in the 24 years to 2004 showed Glasgow along with central Manchester and Vauxhall, Southwark, Bermondsey and Streatham in South London as the worst affected parts of the country.

In these areas people were at least four times more likely than the national average to be stabbed to death.

As part of attempts to tackle knife crime, police are focusing on ten areas in England and Wales where the problem is greatest. They are London, Essex, Lancashire, West Yorkshire, Merseyside, the West Midlands, Greater Manchester, Nottinghamshire, South Wales and Thames Valley.

The action programme involves funding of £4.5 million to provide activities for young people, more stop-and-search operations, and the increased use of airport-style security arches and hand-held scanners that police can deploy in hotspots including railway stations. The maximum penalty for possessing a knife has doubled from two to four years in prison, and there is a presumption that anyone caught with a knife will face prosecution in the courts rather than a caution from police.

Next month offenders convicted of possessing a knife who are given a noncustodial sentence face being ordered to carry out more intensive work in the community.

Under the scheme an unemployed offender who is ordered by a court to carry out community punishments such as renovating community centres, cleaning graffiti or clearing wasteland, will have to complete at least 18 hours in any one week. The maximum amount of work they can do in a day is set at six hours.

Criminals will be expected to wear high-visibility orange jackets bearing the words “community payback” when they are doing their work.

David Hanson, the Prisons Minister, says today: “They will now have to do at least 18 hours of work a week, and potentially be subject to a curfew that keeps them off the streets in the evening, and a probation appointment during the week on top of these hours.

“This means a significant loss of liberty and free time for all those unemployed knife offenders across the whole of England and Wales.”

The Ministry of Justice said that in June 318 offenders in England and Wales were given community punishments for possessing an offensive weapon. It was unable to give the figure for the whole year.

Among the victims

— Rob Knox, 18, actor, stabbed to death outside Metro bar in Sidcup, Kent, in May. Man charged with murder

— Arsema Dawit, 15, Eritrean schoolgirl, died from multiple stab wounds at a block of flats near Waterloo station in South London in June. Man charged with murder

— Shaquille Smith, 14, stabbed in the stomach while sitting on a bench near his home in Hackney, East London, in June. He and his sister were allegedly involved in an argument with a group of youths. Six teenagers charged with murder

— Muhammad Raja Shafiq, 50, stabbed to death in Burnley in March while trying to protect his teenage son from a gang of young men. Bilal Bhatti, 21, a student, given life sentence in September

— Paul Gilbert, a 22-year-old father, was chased through Newcastle upon Tyne while on a night out and stabbed. His attackers, twins Philip and Mark Craggs, were sentenced for murder and affray respectively

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