• Question by: Emma Best
• Meeting date: 07 November 2024

Andrew Boff AM (Chair): Assembly Member Best, please. Emma Best AM: Thank you. Good morning, Mr Mayor. I want to turn to comments made in recent days by the IOPC, particularly by Sal Naseem [former Regional Director for London, Independent Office for Police Conduct], who led the investigation into Chris Kaba. To make this clear, I want to try to detach this more from that case and talk about restoring officer confidence going forward. He said, “It was fed back to us that if we had not done it”, meaning referring the case for homicide, “at that time, there would...

• Question by: Elly Baker
• Meeting date: 07 November 2024

Andrew Boff AM (Chair): Assembly Member Baker, please. Elly Baker AM: Thank you, Chair. Morning, Commissioner. Morning, Mr Mayor. I have a question for both of you on the recent early release scheme and concerns raised by charities working with domestic abuse victims about the potential early release of their abusers. May I ask what is being done by MOPAC and MPS to manage this risk to women?

• Question by: Leonie Cooper
• Meeting date: 07 November 2024

Andrew Boff AM (Chair): Assembly Member Cooper, please. Léonie Cooper AM: Thank you, Chair. Good morning, Commissioner. I just wanted to ask you about women and the justice system. The Housing Committee is conducting an investigation into this at the moment, and one of the things that we have done is we have visited Bronzefield Prison last week. The Chair actually was amongst us, as was I. One of the issues is about the length of sentences that women are receiving and, in discussion at the prison, it is very obvious that short sentences of less than six months are...

• Question by: Neil Garratt
• Meeting date: 07 November 2024

Andrew Boff AM (Chair): Thank you. Assembly Member Garratt, please. Neil Garratt AM: Morning, Commissioner. Earlier this year, as part of last year’s budget setting process, you took the extraordinary step of submitting to the GLA two budgets, budget A and budget B. I do not believe anyone has ever done this before for any of the functional bodies. I am curious what your motive behind submitting two optional budgets to the GLA was. What was your motive for doing that and might we see a repeat in this coming budget cycle?

• Question by: Joanne McCartney
• Meeting date: 07 November 2024

Andrew Boff AM (Chair): Assembly Member McCartney. Joanne McCartney AM: Hello. I want to just pick up on some of those threads you have made, Commissioner, to my colleague Len Duvall and that is around when allegations of sexual misconduct or domestic violence are made against your own officers. The Casey Review found that a very high percentage of those allegations resulted in no further action. She talked about a boys’ club culture where fellow officers would protect other officers and that the assumption was that public complaints against an officer were tied to a false or malicious intent. I...

• Question by: Len Duvall OBE
• Meeting date: 07 November 2024

Andrew Boff AM (Chair): Assembly Member Duvall, please. Len Duvall (Deputy Chair): Let us turn to the issues of the [New] Met for London progress in terms of the reforms. That was published over a year ago. What has been accomplished so far and what is there still left to do? To the Commissioner.

• Question by: Anne Clarke
• Meeting date: 07 November 2024

Andrew Boff AM (Chair): Order, please. We will do a slightly revised order just for the purposes of the smoothness of the debate. Assembly Member Clarke, you wished to ‑‑ Anne Clarke AM: Yes, thank you, Chair. I want to go back to Assembly Member Wilson’s question. Mark [Rowley QPM, Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis], you put to the Assembly the legal framework in which you police, and where I am really concerned is I still get phone calls. I had a phone call the other day from a local woman who is very concerned that the way in...

• Question by: Lord Bailey of Paddington
• Meeting date: 07 November 2024

Andrew Boff AM (Chair): Thank you. While I try to figure out the new order [of speakers], I would like to welcome to the public gallery students, teachers, and parents from the Home Education Group. I think you are based in Croydon, are you, or around there? Anyway, you are very, very welcome. On that basis, we should all now be particularly well behaved. I am going to ask Assembly Member Lord Bailey next, yes, do come in. Lord Bailey of Paddington AM: Good morning to you both. Mayor, I want to go back to the Chris Kaba case. Two...

• Question by: Alex Wilson
• Meeting date: 07 November 2024

Andrew Boff AM (Chair): Assembly Member Wilson, please. Alex Wilson AM: Thank you, Chair. My questions will be to the Commissioner, if that is OK. Thank you. Briefly, as a follow up from the exchange between Assembly Member Hall and the Mayor, I think it is really, really important that the officers that are doing a very difficult job on the front line, keeping London safe, have the support of both the operational and political leadership of the MPS, and I think on this particular case you have been pretty strong, which is great. I appreciate that the full details...

• Question by: Zoë Garbett
• Meeting date: 07 November 2024

Andrew Boff AM (Chair): Thank you. Assembly Member Garbett, please. Zoë Garbett AM: Good morning, Commissioner. I want to start by setting the context for some of my questions, which is around the policing of drugs and the drug trade. You may have seen that the Office for National Statistics published the recent death figures on 23 October, which showed a national increase of 11 per cent and in London 500 people dying from drug poisoning and drug misuse, which is five times higher than the number of people who have died from homicide in the same period and five...