At last night's Full Council, Westminster Councillor Ed Pitt Ford (Conservative, Pimlico North) made the case for urgent action to tackle rising crime in Westminster.
We are losing control of the city. We are breaking records for phone theft. Theft from shops is brazen. And in my ward, which includes Victoria Station and Vauxhall Bridge Road, theft from person is up 45% on a rolling 90 day period.
I believe the cause of the issue is people thinking that they can act with impunity, and social media enables this message to spread and spread fast. We haven't just lost control of the city, we've lost control of the narrative. People need to believe that they will be caught. They need to believe that they will be punished. They need to believe that someone is in control.
And we all know that the Council does not control the Met Police. That would be the Labour Mayor through his role as Police Commissioner. We all know that the Council does not set national policing policy. That would be the Labour government through the Home Office. But this Labour-controlled council has a role to play using the powers it does have for the benefit of all residents, businesses and visitors.
How do officers view your stance on crime and anti-social behaviour? Is it zero tolerance or do you see every culprit as a victim? A victim that they may well be, but we all need to be in the system with clear rules and consequences, and the support for people can be in addition to and not instead of law and order.
Yes, we need more housing and mental health support, but we don't have it right now and need to accept that and solve the problem we have. How do citizens in Westminster view your stance on crime and anti-social behaviour? I bet they don't know who is in charge, let alone what their views are. We need to better publicise our policies and when enforcement action is taken, we need to make that heard so that people know we don't stand for this behaviour in our city.
Accepting that the police are underfunded, under-supported and undermanned let's stop relying on them and use the powers we have been granted as a council to help ease their burden. Our officers need to be issuing more community protection notices. It should not take over four months to remove a caravan from a residents' parking bay. We should be coordinating with police and rough sleeping organisations and leading the response.
Enabling people to sleep in tents is not helping them. They need tougher love than this. Tents have no sanitation facilities and people residing in them need a firmer stance to help them get their lives back on track. When life gets on top of you, sometimes you need the authorities to enact their duty of care. I have certainly gone through times in my life when I haven't been acting in my own best interest, and I've needed friends or family to step in.
No one thanks the teacher who lets them fail their exams. So yes, I am anti tent. Rough sleeping may have been decriminalised, but that doesn't mean we should be allowing it to happen. Sometimes people choose to do the wrong thing. Not everyone deserves the benefit of the doubt or can continue to blame a difficult past. They have agency and must be accountable for their actions.
I know that people in this room stand up for what they believe in every day, and now more than ever, we need to do just that. We need to lead by example and ask our officers to do the same. At this point, I want to mention the residents of Eccleston Square, who are a prime example of people taking responsibility for their community.
They deal first-hand with drug dealing and anti-social behaviour, but they are not taking it lying down. They report the issues despite the painful process. They gather the evidence the police require and together they are standing up to crime. We have some great officers supporting the community in their efforts, and we need the Labour administration to throw their weight behind them with sufficient resources that they feel safe to intervene.
People in our communities are putting themselves at risk every day to do the right thing. The person reporting the shouting late at night, the person reporting the violent dog, the person taking a picture of a drug deal, and when they look over their shoulder, the council should be right behind them to back them up.
Thank you, Lord Mayor.
