Mayor warns Conservative police cuts could mean thousands fewer front-line police officers in London

The Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, warned today (Tuesday 6th June) that planned Conservative spending cuts mean the Met could lose thousands of front-line police officers over the coming years.

Under the Government’s planned cuts to the Metropolitan Police, the number of front-line officers could be reduced by between 3,400 and 12,800 Police Constables. That would mean a reduction in the size of the force by at best around 10 per cent, and at worst around 40 per cent - assuming all savings came from reducing officer numbers.

The Mayor praised the police and emergency services in the aftermath of the horrific terrorist attack in London Bridge on Saturday night, saying ‘their tremendous bravery saved lives’. Armed police officers arrived on the scene of the attack just two minutes after being called and brought the incident to an end within eight minutes. One of Sadiq Khan’s first acts as Mayor of London was to approve the training of an additional 600 armed officers in London.

Theresa May has systematically cut police budgets in London – first as Home Secretary and then as Prime Minister. The Met has had to make £600m of savings as a result of funding reductions since 2010. Under current Conservative plans, not only will the Met have to make another £400 million of savings over the coming years, but it could face a further cut of between £184m and £700m a year, as a result of Conservative plans to change the police funding formula. The Conservatives have also refused to fully fund work undertaken by the Met because of London's position as a major global city, through the National and International Capital Cities Grant (NICC).

Since taking office last year, the Mayor has taken urgent action to keep officer numbers across London as high as possible and to boost the number of real neighbourhood police on London’s streets. He has committed to putting an extra dedicated police officer in every London ward by the end of 2017. So far more than two thirds of wards in London have already received their additional designated officer.

However, the Mayor set out today that if the Tories go ahead with their plans for further cuts to the Met, police officer numbers would have to fall. The Mayor warned that this would make stopping future terrorist attacks increasingly difficult, as community police officers ‘act as the eyes and ears of our security services, providing the intelligence and information that allows us to foil attempted terrorist attacks’.

Labour has pledged to provide funding to London and police forces across the country in order to save local police stations and to hire an extra 10,000 police officers, including more in London. 

The Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan said:

“I want to praise our incredible police officers and emergency services for the dedicated professionalism they showed in dealing with the horrific attack at London Bridge on Saturday night. There is no doubt that their tremendous bravery saved lives.

“I have ensured that our police service has the resources they need to carry out the investigation into this horrific attack - however, I’m deeply concerned about the impact of the further police cuts that the Conservatives have already outlined.

“Our city has suffered two awful terrorist attacks since I was elected as Mayor – and we must do everything possible to stop there being any more. 

“The Conservative plans mean another £400 million of cuts to the Met, as well as between £184m and £700m a year because of their changes to the police funding formula. That would mean London losing thousands of community police officers.

 “Police officers in our communities act as the eyes and ears of the security services, providing the intelligence and information that allows us to disrupt attempted terrorist attacks.

“Cuts on this scale would make it harder to foil future terrorist attacks on our city – and as the Mayor of London I’m simply not willing to stand by and let that happen."
 
ENDS

Notes to editors:

• Over the past six years the government has systematically cut police budgets in London. Since 2010 the Met police have had to make £600m of savings, and over the next few years they will have to find a further £400m. This will mean a total of £1bn of savings will have been made by London’s police service. On top of this, London spends £346m a year on activity linked to its position as a major global capital.

• The Met is supposed to receive full compensation for this work so that Londoners don’t pay the cost. However, the capital currently only receives £174m a year - £172m short. The average London council tax payer pays £61 a year to subsidise this national work. The Home Office’s own panel looked into this and suggested the Met should receive £281m a year, but Ministers refused. The Conservative Government is clearly reducing its funding for policing – we are seeing a reduction of £32 million in policing grant between 15/16 and next year. 
  
  
• The Met also has less money because the previous Mayor, Boris Johnson, cut the police council tax precept last year - the same year as the Mayoral election – against the advice of his own Government.

• The Home Office under the Tories is currently preparing plans to change the way the overall police budget is divided between different forces across the country. If the Conservatives win, there is a very real risk that they will seek to move police funding away from London and give it to other forces instead. When they considered similar changes at the end of 2015 the Met stood to lose between £184m and £700m.

• Last week, the Mayor set out that Tory government planned cuts could lead to up to half of police station ‘front counters’ in London being closed. He set out that he would do this to protect as many front-line officers as possible, but that given the size of planned Tory cuts he might not be able to protect frontline officers even with these closures. 

• The Met has made huge efficiencies, including reducing overtime, cutting managers, selling off 120 buildings, changing procurement processes and cutting officer perks. Plus, the Mayor has asked them to go even further in reducing the number of managers, restructuring the way borough policing is delivered and reducing back-office costs from around 20 per cent to 15 per cent of total expenditure. He also made the very difficult decision to raise council tax by an average of 8 pence a week per household to keep officer numbers as high as possible, following a government warning that not doing so would result in a future cash cut to police funding.

• Labour has committed to funding an extra 10,000 police officers.  This will be paid for by reversing cuts to Capital Gains Tax, which will more than fund the new officers in addition to guaranteeing current police levels.