In their time on the London Assembly, the Greens have made enormous strides in the campaign for a Met the public can trust. We need police reform now – and we will only know we have made meaningful changes when our communities say we have.

• While serving on the Police & Crime Committee, Siân Berry pushed for more transparency over the major differences in time limits before CCTV evidence of a crime disappears, a critical piece of evidence for so many Londoners.
• Caroline Russell published the 2021 Zero Murder report, demonstrating how young Black Londoners are under protected and over policed.
• After years of Green campaigning from Siân, the City Hall Greens successfully drove the Met to record hate crimes motivated by misogyny.
• Serving as Chair of the Police and Crime Committee, Caroline also won £150,000 for drug diversion through Project ADDER in City Hall’s budget.  
• Serving as Chair of the Health Committee, Caroline directed necessary scrutiny attention onto the Met’s role in reducing drug-related deaths in London.
• In March 2023, Caroline got Met Commissioner Mark Rowley to admit strip search was “overused and misused,” a critical step forward in the Greens long-time campaign to end the horrific policing tactic.
• Caroline spoke directly to Baroness Casey of Blackstock over the Casey Review’s investigation into the Met’s culture issues, and as Chair carried out a year-long scrutiny based on the Casey review and the Met’s response to the findings.
• Following years of Siân Berry and Caroline‘s campaigning, in March 2023 the Mayor announced he would begin maintaining a Vision Zero dashboard, a crucial accountability measure needed to eliminate danger on London’s roads.
• In September 2023, Transport for London (TfL) announced they would open a Victim support line, a top priority Caroline has championed since she was an activist on the streets of Islington.

From their unique scrutiny position, the top Green priorities on the Assembly are investigating how the Met police young people, protests, and drugs across London.

Young People

After working with and listening to countless young people and the organisations that work with them, the City Hall Greens know the Met is over policing and under protecting young people.

The truth is, police in schools are unwanted – a Dec 2023 YouGov poll showed over half of Londoners (55%) actively opposed Met Police Officers being stationed in schools.

Indeed, placing officers in schools increases the likelihood that minor behavioural issues will be treated as, or escalate into, criminal justice issues burdening young people with a criminal record that can limit their future life opportunities.

The same 2023 YouGov poll showed that 75% of respondents support specialist youth workers being stationed in secondary schools in London – that is exactly the kind of approach

No young Londoner should head off to school in the morning afraid of being strip searched or unfairly targeted by their own police force.  

Drawing on the critical work from Liberty’s ‘Holding Our Own’ investigation into policing in schools, the Greens will continue to put this data in front of the Mayor, making the case for investing in alternatives that are proven to reduce crime and support young people, such as youth and mental health services. Following up on Siân Berry’s 2021report into the various spending cuts to London’s youth services, Zoë will be seeking to secure additional funding and reopen some of the 130 youth facilities that have closed in the past decade.

Protests

Every Londoner should have the right to peaceful, non-violent protest.

But the City Hall Greens have watched as the Met meets that slight disruption with levels of violence completely disproportionate to the situation at hand. These range from calling out the police response to Extinction Rebellion (XR) protests in 2021, to the Coronation protests in 2023, and of course to the Gaza peace campaigners in 2024, all of which the City Hall Greens have attended to witness the police response first-hand.

Additionally, the Greens have identified a troubling pattern of the Met deliberately publicising the cost of certain protests over others, seemingly to serve a political agenda and in direct contravention of their duty to police without fear or favour.

Indeed, since 2021 nearly two dozen Met press releases mention either the explicit cost or the number of officer shifts in policing protests.  

It is clear the Met are very happy to tell us how much it costs to police things like Just Stop Oil, but – even when we explicitly ask – the Met says it cannot tell us how much it costs to police other public order events.  

In February 2024 Caroline confronted the Mayor directly over this concerning disparity, imploring him to intervene on behalf of Londoners.

This kind of reactive, political policing puts Londoners in real danger, and the Mayor must be pushed to do more to resolve the culture of politicised protest policing in the Met.

Drug Harm Reduction

As Chair of the Assembly Health Committee in 2021, Caroline published a report investigating drug deaths in London. Her conversations with Londoners using and working with drugs demonstrated exactly how urgently drug harm reduction policies are needed in our city.

Specifically, Caroline heard from Londoners that drug checking services, access to nasal naloxone and drug consumption rooms would all play a role in reducing the impact of harmful drug use, as well as urgent improvement and amplification of drugs education and awareness.

Recognising how sensitive this issue can be for so many Londoners, Greens believe the way to drive change forward is by showing the evidence, building the case and continuing to press for a humane and people-centred, trauma-informed plan of action.

Currently, Zoë Garbett is leading drug policy for the City Hall Greens. Having worked in the NHS and with advocacy groups for nearly ten years, Zoë knows that the ‘war on drugs’ is ruining lives. In her first term, Zoë’s priorities are to:

• Make the case for the Met police to stop focusing on low level cannabis offences, specifically via the promised publication of the Mayor’s drug commission.
• Trial overdose prevention centres across London and ensure the police carry naloxone.
• Invest in pre-arrest diversion to avoid criminalising people found with small
  amounts of drugs.
• Fund drug safety testing facilities to tackle the increase in dangerous drug supply.
• Set up community advisory groups to put those most affected by current policies at the heart of making new ones.