Key information
Date: Thursday 26 February 2026
Time: 10:00am
Motion detail
Susan Hall AM moved and Neil Garratt AM seconded the following budget related motion:
“This Assembly wishes to note that there is a significant gap in our understanding on the prevalence of grooming gang criminality across London, and that further work is urgently required to address this.
The Assembly welcomes the commitment made by the Metropolitan Police Service in October 2025 to a review of over 9,000 historic cases of child sexual abuse, reinvestigating them for evidence and patterns of grooming gang behaviour.
We must ensure, however, that the institutions across London which so badly failed victims improve the ways they work, both now and in the future.
This Assembly, therefore, calls on the Mayor to:
- Form an Exploitation Board run by MOPAC, with £1.5 million of funding in the 2026/27 Budget. With the Met, local councils, NHS representatives and child protection charities, the board should develop best-practice interventions guided by insights from victims, and produce a new London-wide Exploitation Prevention Strategy;
- Use the resources of the Met, the GLA and MOPAC to support the National Grooming Gang Inquiry wherever possible;
- Support a dedicated London module of the National Inquiry;
- Lobby the Home Secretary to begin progressing the National Inquiry as soon as possible, without any further delays.”
Following debate, and upon being put to a vote, the motion was agreed with 10 votes being cast in favour and 0 votes being cast against.