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Crime (London)

The hon. Gentleman has made an interesting point about safer neighbourhood teams. Perhaps he will be interested to learn that one of the teams in my borough, although it does excellent work, needs a safer neighbourhood base to patrol from. The Metropolitan police acquired suitable premises about six months ago and has been paying rent and rates on them ever since, but the premises remain empty because the bureaucrats at Scotland Yard made a muck-up of the procurement process and had to restart it. That money has therefore been wasted and the team does not have a base. Is not that a strong argument for a much more direct political drive and direction of the Metropolitan police service, as is being proposed by my hon. Friend the Member for Henley (Mr. Johnson)?