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Crime (London)

They want a new approach and they also want the Government to accept that, according to the British crime survey, fear of crime is higher in London than in any other region in England and Wales. That is a fact. The statistics illustrate why Londoners rightly believe that they need and deserve tougher, more effective law and order policies. We have set out such policies in the past few weeks. But we can only satisfy that demand by Londoners if we give the police the tools to do the job. We believe that a London Mayor must chair the Metropolitan Police Authority for the first time, and I hope that my hon. Friend the Member for Henley (Mr. Johnson) will do that in very short order. As a top priority, he will use his influence to cut red tape on our police men and women, so that they can get out on the streets and do the job that they so badly wish to do. Secondly, the public spaces of buses, trains and railway stations must be made safer, with more visible police and new sanctions for offenders, especially those guilty of antisocial behaviour—something that my hon. Friend has spoken about powerfully and in detail in past weeks. We support him in that. Thirdly, the levels of knife and gun crime in this city are unacceptable and must and, I trust, will be tackled by more weapons scanners—we can show how we would pay for those—and the reform of stop-and-search powers.