Thank you, Sarah [Oyegoke] – not only for that introduction and your inspiring words, but for all your work with us to ensure young people’s voices are being heard.
And thank you, Yvonne.
I know it can’t be any easier today than 10 years ago to talk about what happened to your oldest son, Godwin, who was a kind, talented and ambitious boy with so much potential.
The way you use his story is so powerful, ensuring his legacy – through the Godwin Lawson Foundation – is positive one, helping to keep young people safe in our city, and preventing other families from having to go through the same pain.
Just over a week ago Yvonne received an MBE at Windsor Castle.
What you’ve done is as incredible as it is inspiring, and – on behalf of London – I thank you once again.
I also want to thank Kirk Harrison and the Black Prince Trust.
Thank you not only for hosting us today, but for the great work you’re doing here.
This includes the brilliant Fight 4 Change initiative, which provides boxing, martial arts and fitness training to support vulnerable young Londoners from deprived communities who could be at risk of getting caught up in violence.
This is exactly the kind of initiative we need to see in other parts of London – something I’m going to be talking about much more in my speech.
I see reducing violence and making London safer as the single most important part of my job as Mayor.
There is no greater task that faces my administration.
Because safety is the bedrock upon which all else in our society can function and flourish.
And because I know the devastating impact that violence has on victims and communities.
Being the Mayor of a global city like London means I’m confronted with many complicated challenges.
But the issue that keeps me up most at night is the senseless knife crime that results in the murder of young Londoners – many just teenagers.
It reminds me of what Robert Kennedy once spoke of as the “mindless menace of violence” that stains our land and our lives.
Every death as a result of this needless violence is an utter tragedy.
It leaves lives destroyed and families grieving.
It tears communities apart and fuels fear.
And it deprives our city of so much talent.
As an MP and as a Mayor, I’ve spent time with bereaved families – parents, sisters and brothers, those who’ve lost a child or sibling under horrific circumstances.
Seeing this raw grief is absolutely heart-breaking.
But I believe we have a duty to keep - at the very front of our minds - the true human cost of violence, and to use it to drive us to work even harder to prevent more tragedy.
So I want to use this speech today to speak frankly about the huge challenge we face with violence in London.
It’s the same challenge facing other cities in our country and around the world.
I want to talk about - with neither understatement nor exaggeration - some of the grim realities on the ground at the moment.
And to highlight the worrying impact of the pandemic – and how it’s made what was already a difficult task even harder.
But my main message today is not one of despair.
Rather a message of determination – that we are redoubling our efforts to reduce violence as we recover from the pandemic.
A message of reassurance - that we have an extensive and expanding plan to win this battle over the weeks, months and years ahead.
And – ultimately – a message of optimism and hope.
Because I believe we not only have the solutions to this complex problem, but that we – collectively across London - have the will, skill and resolve to succeed in reducing violence and making our city safer for everyone.
At the outset, I want to outline some context and facts.
Because too often this issue is over simplified or used to score political points.
So where do we really stand today? And how did we get to this point?
After years of decline, serious violence involving young people in London started to rise in 2012.
This coincided with the impact of government cuts being felt – what they called austerity.
When I became Mayor in 2016, an upward trend in violence had already been well-established.
The widespread public view is that violent crime has continued to rise ever since – except during the cycle of lockdowns during the pandemic.
But what’s not widely known is that we actually started to see a real shift in the right direction before the pandemic hit.
In fact, over the last four years, we’ve seen a downward trend in the number of victims of the most serious violence under the age of 25.
Knife crime for under 25s is down by 48 per cent compared to 2017.
The latest figures show that the overall number of knife crime victims under 25 is down by 39 per cent compared to 2019, and by 31 per cent compared to 2018.
Overall, youth violence has been going down.
Knife crime has been going down.
And gun crime has been going down.
I do not say this to distract or to pre-empt any criticism.
I do so because – although we clearly have a long, long way to go – it’s vital that we acknowledge signs of progress so that we can learn from what’s starting to work, and build upon it.
We must also acknowledge the depressing reality that the one statistic that’s not heading in the right direction is the number of teenage deaths in our city.
Yes, overall, the level of knife crime is substantially decreasing – meaning fewer violent attacks, fewer victims in hospital and fewer young offenders.
But due to the increasing ferocity of the attacks, this is yet to translate into fewer teenage homicides.
So the statistics paint a very complex, mixed and evolving picture.
But what’s clear is that the level of violence impacting young Londoners remains far, far too high.
And that we must redouble our efforts once again as a city.
So what’s the path ahead?
A crucial part of the solution is always going to be supporting the police to stem the awful bloodshed and to bear down relentlessly on offenders.
That’s why I commit again today to do everything in my power to ensure the police have the resources they need to do their job.
Over the last five years, we’ve invested more in the police than any other administration in the history of the Mayoralty.
And thanks to this – as well as the Government agreeing to reverse some of its policing cuts - the number of police officers serving on the streets of London now stands at more than 33,000.
This is the highest it’s been for over a decade.
However, our population has increased by more than one million over the last decade, and crime has become more complex.
So I’ll continue to do everything possible to get more officers on the streets.
I’ll also continue to ensure that we:
Focus policing on the areas of London worst affected by violence.
That we crack down on gangs and the drug market – which we know is a huge factor in fuelling violence.
And that we work in partnership with local authorities, the NHS, social services, the probation system and others to help those being exploited by gangs.
We know that we’ll never be able to simply arrest our way out of the problem – and that we must, at the very least, place an equal emphasis on prevention as well as enforcement.
The old mantra rings truer today than ever:
That we must be both tough on crime and tough on the complicated causes of crime.
Because the truth is we know there’s a complex set of factors at play in people’s lives, homes and communities, which can alter the likelihood of someone taking the wrong path and getting involved in violence.
This includes deep-rooted and engrained social and economic issues.
Like poverty and inequality.
High unemployment.
Family breakdown.
Domestic violence.
School exclusions.
Poor mental health.
The lack of youth services.
A sense of alienation and disaffection.
Systemic and structural racism.
The negative impact of new forms of communication and social media.
And the link between drugs, gangs and violence.
Tackling all these issues - alongside good policing - forms the other part of the equation.
This is not just theory or anecdotal.
It’s backed up by evidence.
And – today - I’m releasing the most detailed analysis yet, which truly lays bare the extent of the link between violence and poverty, deprivation and a whole range of other socio-economic factors.
For the first time, we’ve built models that identify which factors can predict the rates of violence across London - for both victims and offenders.
So, what’s the latest evidence?
One of the strongest correlations found by the experts is the percentage of those out of work.
The higher the percentage of those unemployed in our communities, the higher the rate of serious youth violence.
We also found strong links between levels of violence and food insecurity, school absence, youth unemployment and deprivation in general.
All 10 of the boroughs with the highest rates of victims of serious violence have higher rates of child poverty than the London average.
One of my biggest concerns now is that the pandemic has made worse many of these risk factors:
For example:
Universal Credit claims have risen by nearly 130 per cent – with the highest increases in the top five boroughs for rates of serious youth violence.
Over a fifth of young Londoners are now unemployed.
And perhaps most worryingly - the percentage of Londoners who have a “high life satisfaction” rating has fallen by 5 per cent since 2019 – the biggest fall since records began.
Before I continue, I want to make one thing absolutely clear:
When I highlight these conditions associated with violence, I’m not in any way excusing criminality.
The strong link between crime and deprivation does not let criminals off the hook whatsoever.
This is not an excuse for breaking the law.
Most people growing up in poverty – no matter how desperate – never end up getting involved in serious violence.
But any sensible society understands that it’s in our own interest to remove the conditions that allow criminality to thrive.
To provide positive opportunities for young Londoners who could otherwise be vulnerable to exploitation.
And to give them hope for a brighter future.
Surely, we must all want young Londoners to feel like they have a stake in society, rather than feeling so hopeless that they’re willing to stake their lives for so little.
Another clear pattern that can’t be ignored from our analysis is the most common profile of those involved in violence.
Here in London, 22 per cent of the youth population are black – but they are significantly overrepresented – as both victims and offenders.
For homicide, 62 per cent of victims under 25 and 65 per cent of offenders are Black Londoners.
Black teenage boys are six times more likely to be killed by violence than white boys in our city.
And when you account for population size, Black Londoners are disproportionately represented as victims and offenders for all categories of serious violence.
Of course, the vast, vast majority – 99 per cent - of young Black Londoners are not involved in violence in any way.
They make a massive, positive contribution to our city – something I see every day.
From powering our creative economy.
To helping to keep our public services running.
In other cities, like Glasgow, where the demographics are very different, it’s young white men who are more likely to be the perpetrators, as well as the victims, of violence.
That’s because it’s not skin colour that determines your chances of being a victim or an offender, but the societal and environmental factors I’ve already highlighted – the disproportionate rates of poverty, unemployment and school exclusions.
This issue of disproportionality is not always easy to talk about.
But it’s something that is negatively impacting all those from our Black communities who are not directly involved – from young children to grandparents.
So this is an issue that we must both acknowledge and seek to address.
Not only in relation to violence affecting young people, but more broadly.
And this means proactively tackling the structural barriers and racial inequality that Black Londoners face.
From housing and poverty.
To education and the workplace.
Because it’s clear that Black communities are more likely to be living in poverty than White communities.
That Black children are more likely to be excluded from school.
And that young Black men are more likely to experience discrimination in the labour market.
This takes me to the work we’re doing from City Hall.
Because I’m determined that we take action.
Not only to prevent violence through early intervention, but to achieve our wider objectives of making our city a fairer, more equal, more just place for all Londoners.
Let me start with London’s Violence Reduction Unit – which was the first of its kind in England.
Established in 2018, it’s already made a huge difference to thousands of lives.
And I want to thank Lib Peck, the Director and former leader of Lambeth, and her team.
The Violence Reduction Unit brings together a team of specialists in health, education, local government, communities, youth services and policing to effect genuine change.
The core principle behind all its work is that violence is preventable, not inevitable – something I passionately believe.
Rather than a classic top-down approach, the VRU is working with local communities most impacted by violence to ensure they have the tools and resources they need at the grassroots level.
It’s also ensuring that young people have a voice in the solutions to reducing violence through the Young People’s Action Group.
Next year alone, London’s VRU will be providing mentoring, support and positive opportunities for tens of thousands of young Londoners.
Not only helping to prevent violence now, but in the long-term.
The programmes include:
Supporting teenagers who’ve witnessed domestic abuse.
Delivering high-intensity intervention for the children most at risk of getting involved in violence or exploitation.
Providing support for parents, carers and mentors.
And working closely with schools and colleges to promote the importance of education.
This is all achieved through partnership with councils, the NHS, schools, charities and others – working together with all those who – collectively - can bring about real change in London.
The flagship programme is called MyEnds.
This is about taking a hyper-local, neighbourhood-level approach to reducing and preventing violence in crime hotspots.
We know that violence tends to be concentrated on estates or small pockets of roads.
The old approach of focusing programmes on entire boroughs or large parts of London doesn’t work.
So we’re going local – investing £6 million pounds in eight consortiums across London - empowering local communities to help reduce violence in their neighbourhoods.
Working with the VRU, City Hall is implementing many other programmes to support young Londoners.
From the Young Londoners Fund – which has already provided positive opportunities to more than 100,000 young Londoners.
To Sport Unites – which, like this place, is using the power of sport to improve lives.
And to our Workforce Integration Network programme, which is supporting young Black men into living-wage employment.
But we clearly need to do even more to help combat the negative consequences of the pandemic and to ensure more young Londoners can gain the opportunity to make the most of their talents.
So I’m pleased today to announce that next year – over the course of just 12 months – we’ll be stepping up our work with a package of measures that will support nearly 100,000 more young Londoners.
I know from my own life story the positive impact these kinds of programmes can have.
Because I’ve seen how many young Londoners from deprived and disadvantaged communities often reach key crossroads in their lives.
And without the necessary support at these crucial moments, they can take decisions and paths that not only harm their own future, but negatively impact the rest of society.
Growing up on a council estate in South London, like the one here, I saw first-hand how this can happen.
I’ve witnessed these key moments in people’s lives.
Some of my school friends were given opportunities to develop and gain confidence through family and community programmes, sport and other activities - whether it was boxing in the local gym or playing football at the weekends, or access to high-quality apprenticeships and skills training.
Whereas others – with just as much potential – didn’t have the same positive influences in their lives and were sucked into a life of criminal gangs.
My ultimate ambition for London is that every young Londoner is given the helping hand they need to reach their potential and to contribute positively to our society.
I remember President Obama once saying that we must never tag young people as future criminals, but reach out to them as future citizens.
This is my approach in London, which is why I’m determined to put young Londoners at the very heart of our recovery efforts - utilising all the resources and levers at our disposal.
So let me just finish with this:
We have a huge task ahead to reduce violence in our city – with the impact of the pandemic making things even harder.
There’s no quick fix.
But I’m hopeful and optimistic.
Because, as I’ve outlined today, we do know what the ingredients for the solutions are.
And we’ve already shown that we can – even in the face of extremely challenging conditions – start to turn the tide.
I’m convinced that with the combination of: our new crime and policing plan, all the support we’re providing from City Hall, putting young people first, more help from the Government, ensuring communities are involved, and working together as a city, we can and we will make a meaningful difference.
Stopping the violence before it begins.
Preventing young Londoners from taking the wrong path.
And expanding opportunity for all – so that we can create a fairer, safer city for everyone.
Thank you.