Agenda item

8.03pm – Councillor Greg Smith moved, seconded by Councillor Andrew Brown, the special motion standing in their names:

“This Council welcomes news from the Mayor for London’s Office for Policing and Crime (MOPAC) that Hammersmith and Fulham will have 92 extra beat police officers under its New Policing Plan.

This Council resolves to continue working shoulder-to-shoulder with local police to further cut crime in the borough.”

Speeches on the special motion were made by Councillors Greg Smith and Andrew Brown (for the Administration).

Under Standing Order 15(e) (vi), Councillor Lisa Homan moved, seconded by Councillor Stephen Cowan, an amendment to the motion as follows:

“Delete all after this “This Council” in the first paragraph and insert:

“... notes the headline figures relating to police officers in Hammersmith & Fulham in the Mayor for London’s Policing and Crime Plan, and believes that the figures quoted by this council are incorrect and therefore misleading.  If the plan is implemented in 2015, under the new policing model, officers will not be dedicated to beat duties. Therefore the borough will gain only 3 police officers compared to police numbers in 2011.  However, that means that the total number of police officers in Hammersmith & Fulham will be 556. This is 32 fewer police officers than were deployed in 2010.

The council therefore:

         I.            Regrets the Conservative Administration’s attempts to mislead the public about their party’s cuts to the numbers of front line police officers serving in the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham

       II.            Regrets the reduction in police numbers and notes this is contrary to the pledges made by Conservative councillors, Boris Johnson, the Mayor of London and the Conservative led government

      III.            Also notes that 4 police sergeant positions were removed in the last eighteen months

   IV.            Confirms it will cut all its unnecessary expenditure on expensive senior bureaucrats, on “political propaganda on the rates,” on legal and other costs associated with its defence , its many unpopular schemes with its favoured property speculators and on other waste. It will use a proportion of the savings to fund extra police

     V.            Recognises that police numbers are critical to reducing crime and therefore pledges to set out a realistic time table to delivering all sixteen wards with 24/7 neighbourhood police task squad cover.””

Speeches on the amendment were made by Councillors Lisa Homan and Stephen Cowan (for the Opposition) and Councillors Charlie Dewhirst and Greg Smith (for the Administration) before it was put to the vote:

FOR                            13

AGAINST                   27

NOT VOTING0

The amendment was declared LOST.

The substantive motion was put to the vote:

FOR                            27

AGAINST                   0

NOT VOTING13

The motion was declared CARRIED.

8.35pm – RESOLVED:

This Council welcomes news from the Mayor for London’s Office for Policing and Crime (MOPAC) that Hammersmith and Fulham will have 92 extra beat police officers under its New Policing Plan.

This Council resolves to continue working shoulder-to-shoulder with local police to further cut crime in the borough.