• Reference: 2020/2928
• Question by: Peter Whittle
• Meeting date: 17 September 2020

To ask the Mayor how many road vehicles have been seized by the Metropolitan Police over the last five calendar years. Please categorise the reason for seizure, i.e. no insurance, failure to stop for officers, being involved in a road traffic collision, or believed to have been used in a criminal offence.

• Reference: 2020/2927
• Question by: Peter Whittle
• Meeting date: 17 September 2020

On 9 August 2020, police stopped a vehicle being driven through Hackney, to speak to the driver of the vehicle. The Metropolitan Police subsequently stated that the stop was a mistake, caused by an officer incorrectly entering the car's registration number. From the footage available, Dawn Butler MP immediately announced to the officers that she was a Member of Parliament and subsequently accused the officers of racism. 1 Scotland Yard’s Deputy Commissioner Sir Steve House said officers could not have known Butler and the driver of the BMW car were black before they stopped it, because the windows were tinted...

• Reference: 2020/2926
• Question by: Peter Whittle
• Meeting date: 17 September 2020

On 29 August 2020, Piers Corbyn was slapped with a £10,000 fine for his part in the 'Unite for Freedom' rally on Saturday which saw thousands descend on Trafalgar Square in a protest against extending the Covid emergency measures. The 73-year-old stated on Twitter that he had been handed the fixed penalty fine as ‘organiser’ 1. If Piers Corbyn was fined £10,000 for ‘breaking COVID laws’ surely the organisers of the Day of Ashura march and the #MillionPeopleMarch should face the same. If not, why not? 1 https://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/trafalgar-square-antilockdown-ma…

• Reference: 2020/2925
• Question by: Peter Whittle
• Meeting date: 17 September 2020

I note the growing proliferation of so-called ‘Street Teams’ which now patrol swathes of London’s West End, clad in combat boots and stab vests. These individuals talk to shop owners and members of the public and are clearly carrying out the local intelligence-gathering role that used to be part of policing in London. I take it that their presence on our streets is yet another indicator of the decision by the Metropolitan Police to abandon Sir Robert Peel’s Principles of Law Enforcement. Is this the future of policing in London?

• Reference: 2020/2924
• Question by: David Kurten
• Meeting date: 17 September 2020

Given the paucity of commercial advertising currently available to TfL to entertain London’s commuters on the tube, I welcome the return of ‘Poems on the Underground’. However, the current offerings available read like the maunderings of the disturbed. Whilst I am well aware that there are some in our city who are not keen on British culture, the English language has always offered a rich poetic tradition. Is it possible that those involved in this initiative could be persuaded to provide Londoners with something slightly more uplifting in these difficult times?

• Reference: 2020/2923
• Question by: Peter Whittle
• Meeting date: 17 September 2020

The British police have serious institutional problems. Thanks to financial pressure and legal changes, they over-police low-level offending and under-police serious crime. The regular stream of videos showing police officers being abused by bystanders, while trying to arrest a suspect is a depressing sign of the times. I can’t help but feel the police themselves are partly responsible. In going woke, they have forfeited authority and respect. What changes are the Metropolitan Police going to institute to correct this error?

• Reference: 2020/2922
• Question by: Peter Whittle
• Meeting date: 17 September 2020

On 1 August 2020, the ‘Afrikan Emancipation Day Reparations March’ took place in Brixton, with individuals parading in the streets in black uniforms and stab vests. As you will be aware, the Public Order Act 1936 prohibits the wearing of paramilitary and political uniforms in this country. I am assuming that the senior Metropolitan Police officer in charge that day was also aware of this law. However, I feel that once again the police are sending out the signal that laws will be enforced differently for individual communities in London. This policy has profound implications for the future of policing...

• Reference: 2020/2921
• Question by: David Kurten
• Meeting date: 17 September 2020

On 22 July 2020, you appeared before Parliament’s Transport Select Committee and told them: ‘Unlike du ring the previous administration where the number of people earning over £100,000 was going up and bonuses were going up, in the last four years they have been going down.’ However, for the end of the financial year 2015/16, when you took over as London’s Mayor, the total number of TfL employees earning more than £100,000 was 458 - including Crossrail staff. That went up for the next two years - to a high of 617. It then dropped to 515, before rising again...

• Reference: 2020/2920
• Question by: David Kurten
• Meeting date: 17 September 2020

It is an offence not to produce your driving licence, certificate of insurance and MOT certificate when requested to do so by a police officer. However the usual procedure is that the police officer will issue a HO/RT1/ (called a 'producer'), requiring the driver of a vehicle to produce the documents at a police station of their choice within seven days. How many ‘producers’ have been handed out to drivers by the Metropolitan Police’s Traffic Command over the last five calendar years?

• Reference: 2020/2919
• Question by: Peter Whittle
• Meeting date: 17 September 2020

I note press reports that Metropolitan Police officers executed a vehicle stop on Saturday 4 July in Lanhill Road, London W9. Team GB athlete Bianca Williams and her partner, the Portuguese sprinter Ricardo dos Santos were driving a Mercedes which was being driven on the wrong side of the road, at speed. Former Olympic athlete Linford Christie would subsequently accuse the Metropolitan Police of ‘institutionalised racism.’ Police Commissioner Dame Cressida Dick would tell the Home Affairs Select Committee that a senior officer representing the police had apologised to Williams for the distress the incident had caused her and said the...