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The scope of Sadiq Khan’s powers as London mayor is below scrutiny after Priti Patel ordered an unbiased evaluate of his function in the hiring and firing of Metropolitan Police commissioners.
The Instances reported that the evaluate shall be headed by Tom Winsor, the just lately retired chief inspector of constabulary. The transfer follows the “ousting” of Met chief Cressida Dick in February, after Khan withdrew his assist for her amid “racism, misogyny and misconduct scandals” within the drive.
Patel was stated to have been “blindsided” by the Labour mayor’s withdrawal of confidence “just a few months” after Dick was awarded a two-year extension to her contract, the paper continued. The house secretary will select Dick’s successor however is “legally required to take Khan’s opinion under consideration”.
In an extra conflict over Khan’s powers, Policing Minister Package Malthouse has instructed the mayor to finish his “baffling” assist for legalising hashish and concentrate on knife crime within the capital as a substitute.
What’s Khan’s function as mayor?
Khan “units the finances and is chargeable for making London a greater place for everybody who visits, lives or works within the metropolis”, in accordance with the London Meeting web site. The previous Labour MP for Tooting “has an obligation to create plans and insurance policies for the capital”, masking points starting from arts and tradition to housing, transport and policing.
In keeping with Police UK, Kahn “is chargeable for setting policing and crime priorities for London”. As mayor, he “will maintain the Met Police commissioner to account and work with companions to make sure that crimes goes down and prison justice outcomes are improved”.
The Telegraph reported in February that Patel was planning a shake-up of laws to stop police and crime commissioners (PCC) from dismissing chief constables, together with Met commissioners, “for political or private causes”. Khan is the equal of a PCC for London, so “does have the facility to successfully dismiss the commissioner and droop them if the Metropolitan Police Authority needs to take away or drive them to retire”, stated the paper.
Khan may also affect policing within the capital in different methods, though he doesn’t have the facility to vary particular laws.
Following by way of on a key manifesto pledge in his mayoral marketing campaign final yr, Khan has appointed former justice secretary Charlie Falconer to steer a London Medicine Fee that “will look at the potential advantages of legalising hashish” in London, That is Native London reported.
Whereas the mayor can’t legalise hashish, he can “present suggestions on any potential mannequin” for drug reform within the capital, and is prone to “concentrate on present options that may be carried out with out Residence Workplace approval”, stated Politics.co.uk.
Khan is backing a pilot scheme in which younger folks aged 18 to 24 discovered with “small” quantities of hashish within the London boroughs of Lewisham, Greenwich and Bexley are to be provided speeding-course-style courses or counselling as a substitute of arrest.
The challenge is being spearheaded by Damien Egan, the mayor of Lewisham, however could also be funded by the mayor’s Workplace for Policing and Crime (MOPAC), after “related pre-custody ‘diversion schemes’ for drug customers” have been discovered to work efficiently in different components of the nation, the London Night Customary reported.
Might Khan’s powers be diminished?
In keeping with The Instances, a phrases of reference for the unbiased evaluate ordered by Patel asks Winsor to “present the house secretary with recommendation, choices and proposals on how accountability and due course of in these respects could also be strengthened”.
The evaluate will take a look at whether or not the mayor’s function must be “diminished” in an effort to “scale back the impression of politics”, stated the paper, and “whether or not modifications could possibly be made so {that a} withdrawal of mayoral confidence wouldn’t essentially end in a commissioner’s resignation”.
Decreasing Khan’s powers would require new laws, and could be prone to “anger Metropolis Corridor, provided that his function is to carry the Met to account and requires a detailed working relationship with its management”.
However, added The Instances, “it’s doable, although thought-about a lot much less doubtless”, that Winsor might suggest that the mayor “be given extra powers, to skew the stability in his favour”.
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