Gordon Brown last night warned youngsters carrying knives that they would be "caught, prosecuted and punished" as his government was accused of failing to crack down on knife crime.

Appearing on the BBC's One Show, the Prime Minister said: "We have got to punish and prevent. We have to make it totally unacceptable to carry a knife just like we have done with guns, bullying and kicking racism out of sport; it's unacceptable for young people to carry a knife."

He expressed sympathy for the family and friends of Ben Kinsella, 16 - stabbed to death outside a bar in London last month - whose funeral takes place today. Ben was the 17th teenager to be fatally stabbed or shot in London this year.

While the British Crime Survey (BCS), which covers England and Wales, showed overall crime was down 10% in the past year, the Conservatives picked up on some "chilling facts" in the report, which, they claimed, showed Labour had failed on law and order.

The BCS, recording knife crimes separately for the first time because of the growing concern, showed more than 350 were committed every day in England and Wales, a yearly total of 128,000 and this did not include offences involving under-16s.

The figures showed more than 22,000 serious offences involved a blade, including 231 attempted murders, nearly 14,000 robberies and more than 8000 woundings.

Dominic Grieve, the Shadow Home Secretary, said: "While we welcome a drop in overall recorded crime, these figures cannot hide some very chilling facts.

"Violent crime has risen by 80% under Labour and the scale of knife crime on our streets ... is a shocking indictment of Labour's failure to tackle crime and its causes."

In Scotland, the most recent statistics showed in 2006-07 there were 118 homicides, up more than a quarter on the previous year.

The most common method of killing in each of the past 10 years has been with a sharp instrument such as a knife; used last year in 45% of the homicides ie 54.

The Scottish Government is considering a crackdown on knife crimes in its forthcoming Criminal Justice Bill with the possibility of a mandatory jail term for anyone carrying a blade. This is similar to David Cameron, the Conservative leader's policy, which is that anyone carrying a knife should "expect" to go to jail.

Asked about this, Mr Brown said: "What people want in the community is prison if you're carrying and using a knife. But if you're carrying a knife, a community payback that's really tough, 60 hours, Friday and Saturday nights, full time, difficult; you are in a sense humiliated by having to come in front of the rest of the community and the community should choose the punishment."

He added: "That's what we are trying to get to so that young people know that if they carry a knife, they're going to be caught, they're going to be prosecuted and they're going to be punished."