Sadiq Khan pledges £7.8m extra funding to tackle gang violence if re-elected as mayor

Sadiq Khan has pledged an additional £7.8m to support young people in neighbourhoods most affected by violence if re-elected as mayor of London.

Figures released last week revealed that knife and gun crime rose in London by 20% last year.

With three days to go to the mayoral election, the Labour incumbent has promised to extend the My Ends initiative run by his violence reduction unit from eight to 11 boroughs.

Mr Khan vowed to expand the programme to 30 neighbourhoods by the end of his third term.

The My Ends programme was first launched in 2021 serving eight areas of London that are affected by “high and sustained levels of violence”: Brent, Croydon, Hackney, Haringey, Lambeth, Newham, Southwark and Tower Hamlets.

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The community-based project targets young people moving from primary to secondary school, and provides street-based youth work to divert them from gangs and towards positive opportunities. These include after-school support, therapy sessions and music, arts and drama activities.

During a visit to a My Ends project base in Croydon, Mr Khan said: “Tackling violence and making our city safer is my number one priority. As mayor, I have been both tough on violence and tough on the complex causes of violence.

“This major new investment will play a pivotal role in providing targeted support to communities across the capital – whether youth work, mentoring, or a variety of after-school activities. The additional £7.8m announced today will make a huge difference to the neighbourhoods that most need it.

“The mayoral election on May 2 is a clear choice between me investing in our young people and more police officers, or the Tory candidate who has backed huge cuts to London’s vital public services and has no plan for tackling the complex causes of crime.” 

According to the Office for National Statistics (ONS), 14,626 knife offences were recorded by police in the capital in the 12 months to December 2023. 

That was 22% higher than the 2022 total of 12,034 offences, and meant that an average of 40 blade offences were committed each day in London last year.

A 20% rise was seen in gun crimes, with 1,208 offences during 2023, up by nearly 200 on the 1,010 recorded a year earlier.

Some 9,694 knife crimes were recorded in the capital in the year to the end of March 2016, just before Mr Khan took office. The latest figure of 14,626 in 2023 is a 51% rise since the start of his mayoralty.

When asked about these figures Mr Khan told LondonWorld: “Each statistic is a person. I’m quite clear these are human beings whose lives have been transformed for the worst.

“I was a member of Parliament for 11 years, I’ve been mayor for eight years and I met too many victims of crime and bereaved families.

“It makes me angry they’ve been let down by cuts to our police, cuts to public services. I also know the causes of crime are quite complex, deprivation, poverty, alienation and lack of opportunities.

“Since I’ve been mayor I’ve been investing in both the police and constructive things for people to do. Yes we’ve made progress compared to population rising, austerity and further cuts but we’ve got to do more.”

Tory mayoral candidate Susan Hall said: “Knife crime is out of control in Sadiq Khan’s London and he is just not listening.

“I am listening to Londoners, which is why I will recruit 1,500 more police, bring back borough-based policing and give every frontline officer knife detection wands so we can get more knives off our streets.”

The London mayoral election is on Thursday May 2, along with the election of members of the London Assembly.