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• Reference: 2015/1564
• Question by: Tony Arbour
• Meeting date: 03 June 2015

With the Metropolitan Police Service needing to make £800m in savings, it will become increasingly vital that it can deliver more with less. What role does technology have to play in providing London with a police force fit for the 21st century?

• 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: 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: 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...

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

The review of rape services that you alluded to earlier, Commissioner, highlighted the importance of ISVAs to counselling those victims of rape and sexual assault. Are you committed to seeing an increase in the number of ISVAs?

• Question by: Victoria Borwick
• Meeting date: 03 June 2015

While we are talking about the 21st century and taking things forward, I would like to bring your attention to the residents of Knightsbridge, particularly, in central London, who are suffering from the people who drive amazing supercars that make the residents’ lives hell. I do not know, Mr Mayor, if you would like to join with me in raising this concern with the Commissioner. Some of these cars are, of course, without insurance. They get shipped in at quite significant cost. They drive around the streets at 2 o’clock and 3 o’clock in the morning, racing through the streets...

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

Commissioner, I was quite surprised to read in The Times yesterday some comments you had made about not being able to track people on iPhones. It was particularly relating to Uber, where they can track somebody who calls up for a cab. It is rather strange given what we see on American television and police that you in the MPS do not seem to be able to track anybody who has called in on a phone where it might be very, very helpful if they are in some danger.