The main mayoral candidates vying to become the capital's mayor have taken part in a BBC London debate hosted by Eddie Nestor
Sadiq Khan from the Labour Party, Susan Hall from the Conservatives, Rob Blackie from the Liberal Democrats and Zoë Garbett from the Green Party joined the event
Issues discussed included policing, housing and transport
The debate was recorded on Wednesday and the programme was broadcast the following day on Thursday, 25 April on BBC One at 20:00 BST
The vote will take place on 2 May with the candidate elected becoming London's mayor for the next four years
The conversation now turns to violence against women and how they can feel better protected.
Garbett says it's a “failure” that the Met does not currently record whether a crime has been motivated by the hatred of women, which makes females feel like “they aren’t heard”.
"We know that women really don't trust the Metropolitan Police."
When asked what she would do about knife crime, Hall says "we can't carry on as we are. It's been an absolute failure for the last eight years".
She says the biggest thing for her is getting knives off the streets and so plans "to give every front line officer a knife wand which “is like a metal detector”, so they can tell if someone is carrying a knife.
The Conservative candidate also says every high school would be offered a knife arch.
Blackie asks her about how much this would cost but she does not answer and the debate moves on.
"It's always somebody else's fault isn't it?" interjects Blackie. "You've been in charge of the police for eight years."
Khan ignores the comments and carries on speaking to Tilisha and speaks about the importance of investing in youth workers and youth clubs and having mentors.
Eddie Nestor then asks Khan about Blackie's comments and whether he takes any responsibility for increasing crime rates during the time he has been mayor.
Khan doesn't answer and says he would invest in more youth workers and mentors.
“I could have been a victim of knife crime when I was younger but my youth club and boxing mentor saved me,” he says
When asked about his eight years as mayor, Khan says he doesn't think crime "is inevitable, it's preventable".
"I think the way we deal with crime is the same way we deal with public health issues."
He says "you deal with the infection which is taking knives off the street... but stop the infection occurring in the first place" and blames the closing down of aspects like youth services on the rise in crime.
Knife crime has risen each year since the pandemic, with 13,503 incidents recorded in the capital between July 2022 and June 2023, a 21% increase on the previous 12-month period.
In 2023, there were 21 teenage homicide victims – 18 were fatally stabbed, two were shot and one was killed after his moped was hit by a car.
The number is up on 2022, when 14 teenage homicides were recorded, but lower than the peak of 30 in 2021.
Find out more here.
Zoë Garbett says getting police recruitment right, “so the right people with the right values and the right skills”.
“It matters who’s coming in and the support from the Met for doing the job.”
She also says investment is needed in youth services, education and “making sure young people have hope and feel really included in our communities”.
Rob Blackie responds to Tilisha by saying his top priority is to “fix the Metropolitan Police”.
He says it’s also important to build trust in the police so would scrap stop-and-search of young people for cannabis as “it’s a complete waste of time but more than that it damages the relationship between the police and community”.
Watch: Tilisha Goupall on London's violent crime epidemic
Viewers are shown a video featuring Tilisha Goupall whose 15-year-old brother Jermaine died after he was fatally stabbed in 2017.
She now runs a grassroots organisation in Croydon to stop knife crime.
“I don’t have any confidence in the police right now, I am going into primary schools and kids are carrying knives,” she says.
She is sitting in the audience and asks the candidates what they would do to stop Londoners being killed as a result of violent crime as “no family should suffer in the way we did”.
In March 2023, Baroness Louise Casey released a report into the culture and standards of the Metropolitan Police Service.
She was tasked with the review after serving police officer Wayne Couzens murdered Sarah Everard and found that institutional racism, sexism and homophobia were present “across the organisation”.
All of the four main candidates have said they accept the findings of the report.
Susan Hall says if she is elected as mayor she will go back to borough based policing.
She pledges to open two new police bases in every borough “so officers are near the people they are looking after”, as well as recruiting 1,500 more officers and “a £200m injection into the police”.
She says she accepts the findings of the Casey Report and is committed to “doing things differently”.
Sadiq Khan, who has held the post of mayor for eight years, opens the debate by telling the audience policing is “the one issue that keeps me up at night”.
He says he’s “said for some time now that the police has systemic and cultural issues, to do with race, to do with misogyny, to do with homophobia”, which is “ultimately why I lost confidence in the last commissioner”.
The Labour candidate says he has full support in the current person in the post, Sir Mark Rowley, but blames government cuts in policing and youth services for problems with the force.
The first topic tonight is crime and policing.
Eddie Nestor asks the audience for a show of hands as to whether they are happy and confident in the Metropolitan Police.
The first topic being discussed this evening is crime and policing.
The members of the audience are asked to raise their hand if they are happy and confident in the Met Police.
Hardly anybody raises their arms.
A Mayor of London has now started.
Remember, in addition to this live coverage you can watch the programme on BBC One or watch it on iPlayer.
Londoners will be heading to the polls on 2 May, with those who live in the capital, are aged 18 or over on the day of the election and are a British, European Union (EU) or Commonwealth citizen who does not require leave to remain in the UK being able to vote.
This year valid photo ID is required for everyone who votes, with polling stations open between 07:00 and 22:00.
Voters will also be able to vote on the 25 members, 14 of whom represent individual constituencies with the remaining 11 selected according to the share of votes received by each party.
You can find out more about the election here.
The mayor of London has the largest personal mandate of any politician in the UK, with a constituency of 6.2 million voters.
With a budget of billions, the mayor has an important role in making London a better place for everyone who visits, lives or works in the city.
The mayor receives a £20.4bn budget that they use to improve London’s economic and social development, with their key areas of responsibility being transport, roads, policing, housing, economy and culture.
London’s mayor does not have control of many day-to-day services such as social services, schools and rubbish collection which are run by London councils.
Similarly, the NHS, the welfare state and national tax rates are controlled by central government.
You can read more about the role of the mayor here.
During the hour-long debate the four mayoral candidates clashed over violent crime, affordable homes and road use.
BBC London’s Yasmin Rufo was in the audience and you can read her write-up of what happened here.
Stick with us to follow what happens during the programme.
Only the candidates of the four main parties were invited to take part in the programme: Rob Blackie from the Liberal Democrats, Zoë Garbett from the Green Party, Susan Hall from the Conservatives, Sadiq Khan from the Labour Party.
There are another nine people who are also vying to be mayor. They are (in alphabetical order):
You can find out more about them here and how they say they would change the capital if they became mayor here.
Hello and welcome to our live coverage for BBC London’s mayoral debate.
Hosted by Eddie Nestor, the hour-long hustings was recorded in Tottenham on Wednesday and featured the four main party candidates discussing issues including policing, housing and transport.
The programme, called A Mayor for London, is being broadcast on BBC One at 20:00 and we’ll be bringing you text coverage as it goes out on air.
The election is set to take place in a week’s time on 2 May.