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• Question by: Kit Malthouse
• Meeting date: 03 June 2015

I just wanted to explore a bit more the interaction with gangs because you are right, Mr Mayor, that the anti-gang command or the new Trident Command, as it was, was launched at the end of 2011. Obviously, there would have been a bump in activity, arrests and convictions during the early part of 2012. Many of those gang nominals will have had, in my view, relatively paltry sentences and will be now re-emerging from the secure estate. What connection is there between them reaching the end of their sentences and re-emerging and this rise in activity, which may well...

• Question by: Tony Arbour
• Meeting date: 03 June 2015

Mr Mayor, I do not like to kick a man when he is down, but I am always willing to make an exception in the case of the Liberal Democrats. You have mentioned Nick de Bois’ attempts to introduce mandatory prison sentences for second offences of possession of a knife. Do you recall that it was in fact the Liberal Democrats who opposed that amendment?

• Question by: Richard Tracey
• Meeting date: 03 June 2015

Thank you, Madam Chair. Probably the point has been raised by Deputy Chairman Arbour, but I was quite bemused, I have to say, that the Liberal Democrats had asked this question when they seem to have tried to delay the mandatory sentencing of second offenders with knives in the last Parliament.

• Question by: Jennette Arnold OBE
• Meeting date: 03 June 2015

My first question is to Sir Bernard. Sir Bernard, I have quite a lot of information and so bear with me. On 22 May an article was published by The Guardian from Alex Stewart, an ex-police officer from Hackney, who had been awarded the MPS’s highest prize for a recruit in training. He has now left the force due to, as he says, disillusionment with the MPS following the previous rounds of cuts. He gave a stark account of the lack of morale and the huge strain that is on local policing teams at the moment. His comments are backed...

• Question by: Richard Tracey
• Meeting date: 03 June 2015

Thank you, Deputy Chairman. Commissioner, you have been quoted in places in the press recently about the possibility of a further need of police station closures. Could you be a bit more specific about that? Are you thinking about them? The other thing is that there has been some discussion recently about co-ordinating the control of the major services. Of course, I do not imagine I need to remind you that there is a very large fire control centre in Morden, which has a lot of spare space. Would it be something that the police service would consider to make...

• Question by: Jenny Jones
• Meeting date: 03 June 2015

One of my concerns with these terrible, savage, fast cuts to your budget has been that a lot of civilian staff have been lost, close to 4,000 since 2008. Do you know at the moment how many of those posts still exist and are being backfilled by police officers?

• Question by: Navin Shah
• Meeting date: 03 June 2015

My question is about the 24-hour Night Tube service which is going to be operational from September on Saturday and Sunday nights. Can I first start with the Commissioner with a question as to what sort of pressures you expect this to have on MPS resources?

• Question by: Andrew Dismore
• Meeting date: 03 June 2015

My question is for the Mayor. At Mayor’s Question Time a couple of weeks ago I raised with you the intended far-right demonstration planned for July in Golders Green. You said you would investigate it but were reluctant to stop it due to free speech. On Monday this week I sent you a link to their website advertising the event which reads like the Nazi’s Der Stürmer newspaper with cartoons, caricatures and anti-Semitic libels. It is nothing to do with free speech but clearly designed to incite race hatred against the Jews. I have a copy of the website here...

• Question by: Kit Malthouse
• Meeting date: 03 June 2015

Mr Mayor, you and I have sat in this horseshoe now for just over seven years. Boris Johnson MP (Mayor of London): It has been historic. Kit Malthouse AM MP: During that time, the conversation and the questions from the other parties have never changed. Boris Johnson MP (Mayor of London): It has deteriorated. Kit Malthouse AM MP: It has always been, “You are cutting. It is a disaster. Things are going to get worse”, yet crime and the budget have inexorably fallen, together, in parallel. Do you think your victory in 2012 and the Government’s victory not a few...

• Question by: James Cleverly
• Meeting date: 03 June 2015

Sir Bernard, I welcome the comments that were reported about your views on fitness standards within the MPS and policing in general. As someone who has to take an annual fitness test for the Reserve Forces twice a year, which I still find quite amusing, I welcome those. Allied to that and linked to overall policing numbers and policing output from those numbers, the number of officers on long-term sick and restricted duties is still significant. Will you also apply the attitude that you have taken around fitness standards to those officers who - perhaps through no fault of their...