Daily roundup 21 June: Zombie knives, 30 hours childcare, and forced marriage

Zombie knives, knuckle dusters, and other dangerous weapons will be made illegal both in public and private as part of government efforts to make it harder for young people to buy knives. The Home Office said the Offensive Weapons Bill will also require sellers to conduct rigorous age verification to prove those purchasing knives or corrosives are older than 18. Failure to do so will leave them liable for prosecution.


The government's 30-hour free childcare offer for three- and four-year-olds will be extended to foster parents from September 2018, the government has confirmed. The Department for Education said the government will lay regulations to bring about the change early next month. Plans to extend the entitlement to foster parents were first announced by former children's minister Robert Goodwill in December 2017.


A 19-year-old who was promised into marriage at five years old has become the first male in South Yorkshire to be granted a forced marriage protection order. The Guardian reports that the teenage boy and his three younger siblings were all protected from becoming victims of forced marriage. The 19-year-old had received threats for not complying to a pre-arranged marriage, to which his parents had agreed when he was five.


Former children's commissioner for England Maggie Atkinson has been announced as the new chair of the North Yorkshire Safeguarding Children Board. Since stepping down as children's commissioner in 2015 after a fixed five-year term, Atkinson has taken up the chair of the Wirral local safeguarding children board and is chair of A New Direction in London, which campaigns for all children in London to have access to arts and culture.


Services at children's centres across North Somerset are to be scaled back - in a bid to save money. The Bristol Post reports that North Somerset Council is proposing a number of changes to the services it offers at a number of children's centres and nurseries across the district, a move it hopes will help save £315,000. The proposals are due to be rubber-stamped by the authority's executive, which is due to meet next week.