Mayor of London's response to the Government's police funding settlement

Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, said:

“Keeping Londoners safe is my top priority, but today, despite the smoke and mirrors, the Government has refused to give the Met the resources they need to do their job once again.

“The Government’s approach to police funding is putting Londoners’ safety at risk and beggars belief after a year in which we have had four horrific terrorist attacks on our city.

“Londoners should ignore the Government spin today – this is yet another year of real-terms cuts to the funding the Government provide to the Met.

“We will have to look carefully at the details and consult with Londoners, but the brutal reality of repeated Government cuts means that we will probably have no choice but to increase the policing element of council tax by the maximum amount allowed by ministers.

“Pushing police funding of a global city - our capital - from general taxation onto London council tax payers is regressive and unfair.

“Londoners desperately need the Government to end the police funding crisis – which it categorically failed to do today.”

Additional information:

• The Met has had to make more than £600 million of savings since 2010, and must find a further £370 million of savings by 2021/22.
• This has already led to the loss of 30 per cent of police staff posts, and 65 per cent of police community support officers posts, plus most of the capital’s police station front counters and 120 police buildings.
• The latest projections show that if the funding crisis does not end now, and if all savings come from officer numbers, then police officer numbers in the capital could fall below 26,900 by 2021 – a dangerous 19-year low which presents a serious risk to the safety of Londoners.
• The Mayor has also repeatedly called for full funding of the National and International Capital Cities (NICC) Grant, to reflect the true – and accepted – additional costs that come with policing the capital. The Met spends some £346m a year on this work, which includes diplomatic protection, and policing major events such as protests, concerts, football matches and state visits. The Home Office should reimburse Londoners for this work through the National and International Capital Cities (NICC) Grant, but currently underfunds London by around £172m a year. When the Home Office’s own expert panel reviewed the figures, it suggested the Met should receive £281m a year. So, on either calculation, the Met is significantly short-changed.
• For every £1 of Counter Terrorism spend in response to an incident, around £2 is spent on necessary additional non-Counter Terrorism activity, which has to come from wider policing budgets.