Examination of Witnesses (Questions 56
- 59)
TUESDAY 11 MARCH 2008
MR KEN
LIVINGSTONE
Q56 Chairman: Can I open this session
by referring all present to the Register of Members' Interests.
Mr Livingstone, thank you very much for coming to give evidence
to the Select Committee in our inquiry into policing in the 21st
century. Obviously London's role in policing is absolutely crucial.
In your view, does the Police Service in London have the appropriate
structures and capacity for dealing with the challenges of the
21st century, in particular counter-terrorism and in preparation
for the Olympics in 2012?
Mr Livingstone: We have just reached
the end of an eight-year programme of expansion going from 25,000
uniformed staff to 35,000 and a big 4,000 of those have been PCSOs
who were not in anyone's thinking ten years ago. Sir John Stephens
made changes and Sir Ian Blair made even more substantial changes
and, under the threat of terrorism that arose after 9/11, those
were absolutely essential. I think, now that we are seeing the
falling crime figures on the back of rolling out Neighbourhood
Policing, you can begin to see—there will still be some
changes but this is broadly the structure that is important—the
huge specialist operations tackling terrorism but a return to
neighbourhood policing that is giving us the raw intelligence
on who gets in and out of trouble. For decades kids could get
into vandalism, petty crime and not be identified by the police.
Now, half a dozen kids hanging around on a street corner, the
neighbourhood officer walks by and knows them by name and they
know they are known. If I can give one specific example: we introduced
21 teams of 18 PCSOs in the outer London boroughs around transport
modes, particularly targeting the buses, and crime by under-16s
has fallen 19% in the 12 months following. So, all those academics,
Home Office and Treasury people who told us for decades that putting
police on the streets was a waste of money, I think, have been
demonstrated to be wildly wrong. Clearly, we are putting in place
now the structure for the Olympics and, bearing in mind the venues
remain afterwards, it is a permanent legacy for policing because
they will always be doing high-profile events and they will always
be a target for terrorism.
Q57 Chairman: The evidence given
to us so far by Sir Ronnie Flanagan, who has just finished his
major inquiry into policing, is to look at the better use of police
resources rather than more police officers. In fact, Sir Ronnie
told the Committee that the days of the large increase in police
officers was over, but you have promised additional officers.
Have you had a chance to look at the proposals that Sir Ronnie
has put forward?
Mr Livingstone: I think it is
absolutely right. I asked Sir John Stephens to give thought to
how many police are needed to police London, and after about a
year of looking at this he came back and said, "I need 35,000
uniformed officers." We have now achieved that. We are still
looking at new initiatives. We are looking at the moment at expanding
some of the neighbourhood police teams in a project with the Ministry
of Justice and what we call "neighbourhood pathways"
in those wards in London that bear the brunt of returning criminals
from the prison system. We think that perhaps increasing police
in those areas will help prevent some of them falling back into
crime. We will continue to be tweaking at this, but I think the
35,000 is broadly right. We have plans for some expansion next
year, but clearly, having taken about 40% of the increase in total
policing numbers nationally over the last ten years, I do not
expect to be able to do it again.
Q58 Mr Clappison: Mr Mayor, violent
crime is a big problem for many Londoners. Twenty-eight per cent
of Londoners say they are very worried about violent crime, compared
with a national average of 17%. I was supplied yesterday with
some statistics from the House of Commons library which showed
that since you became Mayor total violent crime has gone up every
year, except for last year when there was a change in recorded
statistics and the figures were not comparable. Do you accept
that crime is now higher than before you became Mayor and that
London is a more violent city?
Mr Livingstone: I absolutely reject
that. We had, with some oscillations up and down, basically a
50-year increase in crime that started in the 1950s. It peaked
nationally, I think, in 1999; it peaked in London in 2002-03.
Since that time we have had a 21% reduction in overall crime.
The murder rate is down 28%, gun and knife enabled crime are both
down by over 20%, rape is down by over 25%, and that is against
a background where we add to the figures. In one year recently
there was an increase in what is labelled "gun crime",
but it was mainly the use of CS gas. There was an increase in
sexual crime when we reclassified it so that flashers were included
in the sexual crime figures; we will see an increase in violent
crime where we amended the figures to include spitting; so the
figures, if anything, are being expanded all the time. There would
be something seriously wrong if we put 10,000 extra officers on
the street and you do not get a cut in crime.
Q59 Mr Clappison: These are figures
that have come from the House of Commons library. They put total
violent crime together and they show that it has gone up every
year since you became Mayor and that it is now higher than before
you became Mayor. Do you accept that violent crime is higher now
than when you became Mayor or are they wrong?
Mr Livingstone: They are, clearly,
completely different to my figures. I have to say, I have always
trusted first now Lord Stephens and Sir Ian Blair to bring to
me figures that they were confident in. They are fed into the
Home Office figures, and, I repeat, crime continued to rise until
2002-03; since then it has fallen by some 21% overall and violent
crime has fallen by more than the average. We can swap our figures.
It might be perhaps the Committee needs a group of statisticians
to boil down the figures. It might also be from 2 May people will
have less interest in inflating the figures.
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