• Question by: Richard Tracey
• Meeting date: 04 July 2012

End of October. Can I also ask for an assurance from you that it will be paid for out of TfL funds and not out of borough funds because, of course, it is a London Councils scheme, but this was an extra ingredient that you put in during the election campaign.

• Question by: Richard Tracey
• Meeting date: 04 July 2012

Richard Tracey (AM): You will be taking that up?

• Question by: Richard Tracey
• Meeting date: 04 July 2012

Thank you. I hope that turns out because there were problems with some of the mainline stations and indeed I think with some of the bus services. With mainline trains, I gather that there were Sunday services, or slightly extended Sunday services, being run which really was not adequate. Now journalists, in fact yesterday, were writing up that some of the Olympic workers are finding there are not either early enough trains or late enough trains for them to travel between their homes and the Olympic Park and other venues. What are we going to do about this?

• Question by: Steve O'Connell
• Meeting date: 04 July 2012

One last point, it is more of a reassurance for Londoners going forward, get through the summer, we have a safe and happy summer, but the police do have challenges around its workforce, around its budget. The Guardian report particularly was a very good report, and the HMIC report signposts problems go forward. I think it is important that we get out to Londoners that police numbers are at a record high, crime is going down, and that the town is safe under your jurisdiction.

• Question by: Steve O'Connell
• Meeting date: 04 July 2012

On that latter point, the brief of MOPAC has indeed been widened and indeed your manifesto pledge about bringing in a new Sentencing Unit under the control of yourself is encouraging, because I think Londoners would have been heartened by the speed and the swift response of the justice system to the riots last year, the point you just made. Would you like to see perhaps that continue and the justice system to actually learn some lessons themselves from how they reacted last year to continue with that sort of improvement?

• Question by: Roger Evans
• Meeting date: 04 July 2012

As you know, Boris, I have praised before the Borough Commander at Havering, Chief Superintendent Mike Smith, who used his police on the night of the riots to attempt to pre empt incidents by stopping troublemakers at the railway station as they arrived in Romford and using Automatic Number Plate Recognition technology to stop suspect vehicles on the ring road before they got to town. Is this not a method we should use more throughout the Metropolitan Police Service, because it is better to actually prevent crimes taking place, it is cheaper to do that and better for potential victims...

• Question by: Steve O'Connell
• Meeting date: 04 July 2012

Thank you very much. That was the sort of list that we should be attending to, because they were the prime examples of where the police did not get it completely right last year. We are only a month away from the anniversary of the riots, and I am not speaking just for Croydon, these affected Tottenham and other parts of our great city, and other parts of the United Kingdom, and what is important to take away today is reassurance. What I am asking from you, Mr Mayor, and I know that you asked your previous Deputy Mayor, and...

• Question by: Steve O'Connell
• Meeting date: 04 July 2012

Also heartened very much that only a short while after last year's events there was potential of another bad event, again in South London, around Forest Hill, where lessons were indeed learned and there was a very quick deployment. Lastly, Mr Mayor, I think, and I am reassured, and I know Croydon residents particularly will be reassured that measures have been put into place that there will be no recurrence of last August. But I think the last point really is about reassurance and going forward, so residents out there will understand very much the challenges that the police find...

• Question by: Tony Arbour
• Meeting date: 04 July 2012

For crime to be prevented and for criminals not to want to commit crime, there needs to be two things. One is a certainty of being caught and secondly that they should be punished with a punishment that actually limits their freedom. When the curfews were established it was thought that was going to be a successful way of inhibiting criminals. Criminals have not been inhibited simply because the tagging system has not been successful. I wonder whether your Sentencing Unit might be looking at imaginative ways of sentencing, which will give criminals something to fear. Would it, for example...

• Question by: Tony Arbour
• Meeting date: 04 July 2012

We have MOPAC's principal new thing that it has promulgated, by Kit [Malthouse] firstly and then Stephen [Greenhalgh], was that victims of crime will all be contacted by police to ask if they want a visit. One way of ensuring that there is less pressure on police to visit victims of crime if there is less crime. Can I suggest to you that less crime will be created if there are imaginative sentences like this.