Scotland Yard needs hundreds of millions of pounds in new funding to drag itself out of crisis as its budget is “heading off a cliff”, its commissioner has said.
Sir Mark Rowley said half of the Metropolitan police’s premises were so dilapidated that they faced closure within a decade, and sky-high demand on policing had not been met by an increase in money.
Rowley used his first big speech since Labour came to power to attack successive governments for failing to come up with a plan for law enforcement to keep up with a changing world.
He also launched a thinly veiled attack on the Conservative former home secretary Suella Braverman, who vehemently criticised the Met’s handling of pro-Palestinian protests, accusing the Met’s critics of “emboldening thugs”.
Rowley was giving the Police Foundation’s annual John Harris lecture, and the speech also acted as a report card on his first two years as commissioner of the Met, which is still in special measures because it is judged by the official inspectorate to be failing so badly.
“We are working hard to reform but are doing so in a context where our budget is heading off a cliff,” Rowley said. “Given the financial pressures of the past decade, commissioners and mayors have understandably pulled every lever possible to balance the books. We can do that no longer.”
He claimed the Met has made all the large efficiency savings it could and sold off buildings and closed police stations to save money. “We have funding to refurbish the existing stations – believe it or not – every 120 years. If nothing else changes, within the next decade or so we expect to have to close up to half our current buildings due to them being no longer habitable or legally compliant.”
He added: “So not only are we left with the damage to repair but also a cliff-edge budget for next year of hundreds of millions deficit on current assumptions.”
Behind the scenes, Sadiq Khan, the capital’s mayor, is pressing the government for extra money for the Greater London force. The Labour government has told policing not to expect any new money for three years at least. Nationally, chiefs claims a £3bn shortfall, and some senior figures in policing will see Rowley’s speech as an attempt by the Met to grab money for itself despite being the best-funded police force in the country.
Rowley’s speech contained little or no analysis of how the Met helped worsen the problems it faces. Austerity imposed by the Conservatives led to big cuts, and Rowley said successive governments had failed to plan for policing to keep up with a changing world.
“For almost 15 years the only central strategy for policing seems to have been to employ as many officers as possible, despite dwindling financial resources,” he said. “Operationally, the long-term effects of no plan to keep pace with the world around us are most heavily felt by the frontline.”
There was huge tension with the Conservative government when Braverman, while home secretary, attacked the Met’s handling of protests against Israel’s military action in Gaza after the 7 October massacre.
Rowley said criticism of the force, often online, emboldened criminals. “I’ll tell you what’s shameful: the abuse of our officers and the silence of many in authority. We should be very clear: when people, be they politicians or the public, throw accusations and slurs at the police, they put them in danger by emboldening thugs.”
He praised his officers and vowed to root out bad ones.