GLA Call for Evidence: Preventing Violence and Protecting Young People

 

The weekend's stabbings in Wembley Park and Neasden, as well as the death in Croydon, were very much on our minds last night at the Brent and Harrow hustings for the Green Party candidate for the GLA constituency.

The London Assembly Police and Crime Committee chaired by Green Assembly Member Caroline Russell, has launched an investigation into preventing violence and protecting young people. It will consider the root causes of violence affecting young people in London and what the Mayor and Metropolitan Police are doing to prevent violence in communities.

You can submit your own evidence to the investigation.  Details from  the GLA below.

 

How to respond 

 

The deadline for submission is Friday 13 October 2023.

 

The Committee would like to invite anyone with knowledge or experience of violence affecting young people to submit views and information to the investigation, including those working to protect young people and prevent violence, giving you the opportunity to inform the Committee’s work and influence its recommendations. Therefore, this call for evidence is open to all who would like to respond.

 

1.    What are the root causes of violence affecting young people in London?

2.    What role do non-policing solutions, including projects run by youth services, community organisations and charities, play in preventing violence and protecting young people in London? How do these projects help to reduce violence affecting young people?

3.    What more should schools and education providers be doing to protect children and young people at risk of violence in London?

4.    What impact has London’s Violence Reduction Unit had on reducing and preventing violence since it was established in 2019?

5.    How well does the Met work with partner organisations to prevent and reduce violence affecting young people? What more should it be doing?

6.    What actions should the Mayor be taking to build trust and confidence among young people and protect communities that are most impacted by violence?

7.    What action should be taken to engage young Londoners in initiatives to protect and support young people affected by violence?

 

Please send evidence by email to: scrutiny@london.gov.uk

 

https://www.london.gov.uk/media/102723/download

 

What we will do with your responses

The responses to this Call for Evidence will be used to inform the Committee’s discussion with invited stakeholders at its meetings in September and October 2023 and any subsequent recommendations. These are open meetings which will be held in City Hall, and anyone is welcome to attend as an audience member to watch the discussions. They will also be broadcast online.

Following the investigation, the Committee may produce an output in the form of a published letter or report. Information and/or quotations from submissions to this call for evidence may be used in this output, and we will ensure we cite you. We generally inform those who have submitted evidence about the outcome of the investigation in the form of link to a report or output when it is published.

 

When are you likely to hear results from the GLA election?

 

Brent Council pulled out the stops today to ensure that voters and their staff were Covid safe at polling stations.

The above polling station in Wembley Park had perspex screens to protect staff, a one way system with good air flow, social distance markers on the pavement, sanitiser and covid marshals on hand to ensure compliance with covid safety measures. Voters were urged to use their own pencils or pens.

Voting boxes will go to Alexandra Palace for tomorrow's GLA count which will also be constrained by strict covid safety measures including a reduced number of counting staff and restrictions on the number of party counting agents. The Brondesbury Park by-election count will also take place in a separate room at Alexandra Palace with the count by a 'super team' expected to be completed after lunch, as long as no recount is required.

The GLA Brent and Harrow constituency count takes place tomorrow but some other London constituencies will not be counted until Saturday.  The Brent and Harrow result will most likely be announced on Friday evening but as this is the first count under Covid conditions that cannot be guaranteed.

Provisional declaration times for Saturday are 8pm for the election of the Mayor and 9pm for the election of London-wide assembly members.  If the declaration is held over to Sunday morning the timings are likely to be 10am and 11am.

Guidance on how to vote can be found here: https://www.londonelects.org.uk/im-voter/how-complete-your-ballot-papers

You can follow real-time election results on the electronic screens here: http://www.londonelects.org.uk

Labour battle for the Brent & Harrow constituency GLA nomination

I've had rather a lot of Facebook & Twitter posts advocating a vote for Krupesh Hirani, Brent Labour establishment candidate for the Brent and Harrow London Assembly constituency seat currently held by Navin Shah. Councillors supporting him are not always original in their wording!

I've had the pleasure of campaigning alongside Krupesh's rival candidate, Aghileh Djafari-Marbini, on Palestine at the Harrow Shopping Centre, and I think she deserves a bit of publicity too:

This is what Aghileh has to say:

I am Aghileh Djafari Marbini, and I am standing to be the Labour London Assembly candidate for Brent & Harrow.

 

I have been an activist my entire life. This began with demanding human rights for political prisoners in Iran as a young child and has continued ever since with my fight for social justice with the Labour Party. As a council candidate for non-Labour ward of Headstone North at the 2018 local elections, we mobilised 50 volunteers to canvass with us, many from outside of the borough, and increased the Labour vote by almost 1000 votes.

 

Seventy-two of our fellow citizens burned to death in Grenfell Tower and over 87,000 children in London are homeless. The savage Tory cuts have decimated our youth services and damaged our town centres. Now more than ever London needs a City Hall with a socialist vision and the energy to engage people across the city.

 

As a socialist, mum, school governor, NHS worker and resident of North West London for the last 20 years, I am proud to be endorsed by Brent and Harrow Momentum, and many activists across both boroughs.

 

Londoners need an Assembly that fights the inequalities and injustices in their city. If you want a socialist London that works for all of us then please vote for me to be your Labour Candidate for London Assembly for Brent and Harrow.

Brent does badly in recycling survey of 7 common items

 From Caroline Russell, Green Party London Assembly Member

What would you do with a broken bucket, or a pile of empty crisp wrappers? Would you expect your council to recycle them? Or would you expect to have to travel across London to the nearest recycling facilities?

New research from Caroline Russell AM found that no London Borough was able to consistently recycle a list of seven common household items.

Caroline asked all London boroughs if they could recycle a selection of common household items:

• a broken plastic bucket
• crisp packet
• Tetra Pak container
• Aluminium foil
• black plastic food container
• Biro pen 
• and a bike tyre.[1] 

She found a lack of London-wide oversight means there is no consistency between boroughs, and residents are left confused as recycling rules vary from one borough to the next.

Brent only recycled two of the seven items.

Although most boroughs (29 out of 32) collect six dry recycling streams Caroline found that Havering was unable to recycle any item from the list.

Two London boroughs – Enfield and Kensington and Chelsea – were only able to recycle one of the items, Tetra Paks.

Barnet, Bexley, Kingston upon Thames and Waltham Forest topped the list as they were able recycle five out of the seven items, but no borough currently recycles crisp packets or old biro pens.

People living in some London boroughs would have to leave their borough to recycle the five items. For example, residents of Kensington and Chelsea would have to use the recycling facilities of up to three boroughs.

Caroline Russell says:

We know people are desperately concerned about their impact on our environment, from the new awareness around single-use plastics to fast fashion. 

But it is too hard to know what to do with your rubbish in London. Especially for people who move around and between boroughs, it becomes impossible to know what to do.

You can recycle bike tyres in Bexley but not Brent, and Hackney recycles foil but Hammersmith doesn’t.

When boroughs provide no clarity on what can be recycled, where, and in what condition, it is no wonder that London’s waste mountain keeps growing. 

The Mayor should be asking for the power to take control of London’s waste and sort out this rubbish postcode lottery.

[1] Number of London boroughs who recycle each item*
Broken plastic bucket – 12 Boroughs
Crisp packet – 0 Boroughs
Tetra Pak – 26 Boroughs
Aluminium foil – 27 Boroughs (if clean)
Black plastic food container – 17 Boroughs
Biro pen - 0 Boroughs (if whole and not working)
Bike tyre – 13 Boroughs recycle whole or part

WHAT DOES YOUR BOROUGH RECYCLE?
	plastic bucket	crisp packet	Tetra Pak	Aluminium foil	black plastic food container	biro pen	bike tyre
Barking and Dagenham	✔	×	×	×	×	×	✔	2
Barnet	✔	×	✔	✔	✔	×	✔	5
Bexley	✔	×	✔	✔	✔	×	✔	5
Brent	×	×	✔	✔	×	×	×	2
Bromley	✔	×	✔	✔	×	×	×	3
Camden	×	×	✔	✔	✔	×	×	3
City of London	×	×	×	✔	✔	×	×	2
Croydon	✔	×	✔	✔	✔	×	×	4
Ealing	×	×	✔	✔	✔	×	×	3
Enfield	×	×	✔	×	×	×	×	1
Greenwich	×	×	✔	✔	×	×	✔	3
Hackney	✔	×	×	✔	✔	×	✔	4
Hammersmith and Fulham	×	×	✔	×	✔	×	×	2
Haringey	×	×	✔	✔	×	×	✔	3
Harrow	×	×	✔	✔	✔	×	×	3
Havering	×	×	×	×	×	×	×	0
Hillingdon	✔	×	✔	✔	×	×	×	3
Hounslow	×	×	✔	✔	×	×	×	2
Islington	×	×	×	✔	✔	×	×	2
Kensington and Chelsea	×	×	✔	×	×	×	×	1
Kingston upon Thames	✔	×	✔	✔	✔	×	✔	5
Lambeth	×	×	✔	✔	✔	×	×	3
Lewisham	✔	×	×	✔	×	×	✔	3
Merton	×	×	✔	✔	×	×	×	2
Newham**	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
Redbridge	✔	×	✔	✔	×	×	✔	4
Richmond upon Thames	×	×	✔	✔	✔	×	×	3
Southwark	×	×	✔	✔	×	×	×	2
Sutton	✔	×	✔	✔	×	×	✔	4
Tower Hamlets	×	×	✔	✔	✔	×	×	3
Waltham Forest	✔	×	✔	✔	✔	×	✔	5
Wandsworth	×	×	✔	✔	✔	×	✔	4
Westminster	×	×	✔	✔	✔	×	✔	4
Total	12	0	26	27	17	0	13

* Data for Barnet, Brent, Croydon, Enfield, harrow, Hillingdon, Merton, Newham, Waltham Forest and Wandsworth was obtained from the borough’s website.

**We were unable to find information on Newham’s recycling policy, they did not respond to our request for information.

***Although a number of boroughs told us items could be take to a reuse or recycling centre they did not offer kerbside collection

[2] Wasting London’s Future, London Assembly Environment Committee, Mar 2018 https://www.london.gov.uk/sites/default/files/wasting_londons_future.pdf

[3] London Environment Strategy, Mayor of London, May 2018 https://www.london.gov.uk/what-we-do/environment/london-environment-strategy

[4] ENV18 - Local authority collected waste: annual results tables, published on 28 November 2019

Household Recycling Rate for London
2016/17	2017/18	2018/19
33.0%	33.1%	33.4%

Table 3a, Local authority collected waste generation from April 2000 to March 2019 (England and regions) and local authority data April 2017 to March 2019.xls

https://www.gov.uk/government/statistical-data-sets/env18-local-authority-collected-waste-annual-results-tables

Household recycling rate	2017/18	2018/19	% change
Croydon	37.90%	47.30%	9.40%
Lewisham	21.80%	28.00%	6.20%
Ealing	48.80%	52.60%	3.80%
Westminster	18.80%	21.70%	2.90%
Newham	14.10%	16.90%	2.80%
Bexley	52.10%	54.10%	2.00%
Hounslow	29.80%	31.40%	1.60%
Merton	37.00%	38.50%	1.50%
Kingston upon Thames	48.30%	49.40%	1.10%
Wandsworth	22.10%	23.20%	1.10%
Redbridge	23.90%	24.90%	1.00%
Camden	30.30%	31.10%	0.80%
Kensington and Chelsea	26.20%	27.00%	0.80%
City of London	29.20%	29.90%	0.70%
Richmond upon Thames	41.90%	42.50%	0.60%
Hackney	27.40%	27.90%	0.50%
Southwark	34.70%	35.20%	0.50%
Havering	37.00%	37.40%	0.40%
Lambeth	29.80%	30.10%	0.30%
Brent	36.50%	36.60%	0.10%
Bromley	50.00%	50.10%	0.10%
Hammersmith and Fulham	23.70%	23.80%	0.10%
Islington	29.50%	29.00%	-0.50%
Harrow	41.00%	40.20%	-0.80%
Sutton	50.00%	49.10%	-0.90%
Waltham Forest	32.50%	31.60%	-0.90%
Barking and Dagenham	25.00%	23.70%	-1.30%
Greenwich	35.10%	33.40%	-1.70%
Barnet	36.90%	34.60%	-2.30%
Enfield	35.90%	33.40%	-2.50%
Tower Hamlets	26.40%	23.20%	-3.20%
Hillingdon	40.00%	36.70%	-3.30%
Haringey	32.90%	29.30%	-3.60%

[5] Local Authority collected waste generation from April 2000 to March 2019 (England and regions): 

ENV18 - Local authority collected waste: annual results tables, published on 28 November 2019

Local Authority collected waste sent to Incineration with EfW
2016/17	2017/18	2018/19
52.9%	55.6%	58.3%

Table 2a, Local authority collected waste generation from April 2000 to March 2019 (England and regions) and local authority data April 2017 to March 2019.xls

https://www.gov.uk/government/statistical-data-sets/env18-local-authority-collected-waste-annual-results-tables