The Metropolitan Police has lost more than 1,700 officers since Labour came to power.
Britain’s largest police force saw numbers fall by 5 per cent from the end of June last year to the end of September – with the Tories accusing Keir Starmer and mayor of London Sadiq Khan of ‘running policing in the capital into the ground’.
When Labour entered government, the Met boasted 33,767 officers but now has just 32,055, official figures obtained under Freedom of Information laws show. And the majority of that decline came from officers quitting rather than retiring.
One of Labour’s key pledges in last year’s election manifesto was to ‘restore neighbourhood policing’ with ‘thousands’ of extra cops.
Sir Keir vowed to recruit 13,000 officers, PCSOs and special constables to bring the total police workforce above its 2010 peak. But the figures show the number of Met officers dedicated to local and frontline policing has actually fallen.
Between the end of June 2024 and September this year, it dropped 3.7 per cent from 21,544 to 20,743 – a loss of 801 frontline officers.
Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp said today: ‘Keir Starmer and Sadiq Khan are running policing in the capital into the ground.
‘The Met has lost 1,700 officers in just over a year, knife crime is through the roof and neighbourhood policing has been hollowed out as criminals walk free.
Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley speaks with police officers during a walkabout in the West End of London
‘Starmer doesn’t have the backbone to stand up to criminals, and Khan shrugs his shoulders at an 86 per cent rise in knife crime and the worst clear-up rate in the country.
‘Together they are leaving Londoners less safe every single day.’
Mr Philp said the Tories ‘rebuilt police numbers once, and we will do it again’, adding: ‘We will triple stop and search, target the hotspots and hire 10,000 new police officers, in a fully-funded £800million-a-year law and order plan.’
Official Scotland Yard data shows the Met suffered 698 police officer resignations since April, compared with 462 retirements and 161 transfers to other forces.
Figures in the summer showed knife crime in the capital has soared by 86 per cent over a decade, with the Met’s clear-up rate the lowest in the country at just 4.7 per cent.
Labour was approached for comment. The Home Office said it has ‘doubled funding to £200million to help kick-start the delivery of 13,000 more neighbourhood officers’.
