• Question by: Caroline Pidgeon
• Meeting date: 09 December 2014

A couple of very specific questions here around violent crime in London. Recorded knife crime with injury offences has gone up 51% in the last six months. We have had some terrible recent incidents across London. Given the success of the London-wide firearms amnesty last month, and this current hike in knife offences, would you consider launching a similar amnesty for knives in London?

• Question by: Andrew Boff
• Meeting date: 09 December 2014

Thank you, Mr Mayor. I mean you will forgive us for concentrating on this particular area because our job as Assembly Members is to see where it is going wrong, not where it is often going right. While the decline in overall reported crime is welcome, it is disturbing that we have these particular categories increasing. I wondered if you would be supportive of the recommendations in a report published by the Greater London Authority (GLA) Conservatives in June called On the Wagon, whereby we wanted to see a doubling of the penalty notice for drunk and disorderly behaviour from...

• Question by: Kit Malthouse
• Meeting date: 09 December 2014

Then I just wanted to clarify the situation on Westminster and police stations, since Murad [Qureshi] raised it. My understanding is that Westminster will be like a Belgravia, West End Central and Paddington Green, is that right? Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe QPM (Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis): Sorry? Kit Malthouse AM: The City of Westminster will have three stations in the plan, which is Belgravia, West End Central and Paddington Green, will remain.

• Question by: Kit Malthouse
• Meeting date: 09 December 2014

OK, the other area I wanted to ask you about was the horse, the mounted units, an area I know that is close to your heart. There has been some research recently about the effectiveness of mounted police officers, both in visibility and in terms of enforcement. In effectiveness, I do not know if you have seen the hilarious video of a motorcyclist just on London Wall, I think doing a wheelie, being stopped by a mounted police officer very effectively and dealt with. What are the plans for the mounted units going forward?

• Question by: Kit Malthouse
• Meeting date: 09 December 2014

Anyway, just another specialist unit, you mentioned dangerous dogs and I wondered, given the pressures that you are going to be under, whether you will be able to maintain or indeed increase your activity around dangerous dogs, not least because my perception is the problem is not going away?

• Question by: Kit Malthouse
• Meeting date: 09 December 2014

Commissioner, Mr Mayor, a variety of questions from me. First of all, just on the FGM one, do you have any sense of the level of resources that are currently applied to this particular issue, how many officers, is there a team of 20 or 200?

• Question by: Fiona Twycross
• Meeting date: 09 December 2014

I would like to ask a question about the Metropolitan Police Service’s capacity to tackle female genital mutilation (FGM) now that Department of Health statistics show that London accounts for over half of all FGM cases in England, and I wanted to ask the Commissioner, given we heard last month that ten out of 12 FGM cases put forward by the MPS to the CPS have fallen, are you concerned at the ability we have to prosecute the cases and what lessons have you taken from this for the future?

• Question by: Jenny Jones
• Meeting date: 09 December 2014

Commissioner, could I go back to the conundrum about the future cuts in budgets and the increasing number of officers and, therefore, the increasing percentage that their pay will be. You have already said that pay is a huge percentage of your budget. As you increase offices you are actually brining the point at which it becomes inefficient and you are going to have to backfill officers into support staff roles, eve closer, are you not? If you stick with this what is a fairly arbitrary number of 32,000, or even what has been described as a ‘fetish’ for the...

• Question by: Andrew Dismore
• Meeting date: 09 December 2014

I want to ask you about closed circuit television (CCTV). Boris Johnson (Mayor of London): Yes. Andrew Dismore AM: Do you think CCTV is important in combating crime?

• Question by: Andrew Dismore
• Meeting date: 09 December 2014

A question for the Mayor, really. I want to pick up from where Sir Bernard left off on the issue of abstractions. Boris Johnson (Mayor of London): Yes. Andrew Dismore AM: In February 2013, Sir Bernard told the Police and Crime Committee that he had set a target of no more than 5% of officers’ working time on abstractions, but in July of this year, total abstractions across London in terms of total of hours worked was 17%, more than three times the target. What that translates to is quite serious. In Barnet, for example, in the six months to...