Mayor of London announces budget – increasing Council Tax to invest in neighbourhood policing

Mayor’s ‘precept’ – element of Council Tax added to the local authority’s tax – will be £20.13 more than last year

The Mayor of London has announced plans to increase Council Tax to ‘support neighbourhood policing, tackle phone theft and ensure we can build on the progress being made to reduce homicides, knife crime, burglary and gun crime’.

Figures published by the Metropolitan Police in December show that knife crime in London has gone down – lower than it was in 2024 – and the number of homicides in the first nine months of 2025 was lower than in any year since monthly records began 22 years ago.

Chiswick’s Neighbourhood Police team also recorded ‘a significant reduction’ in motor crime before Christmas.

READ ALSO: Knife crime in Hounslow drops

READ ALSO: Chiswick police chalk up successes at the end of 2025

Cavendish Primary School in Chiswick

Mayor’s Budget also pays for the fourth year of free school meals for primary school children

The Mayor’s draft Budget proposes a £1.22bn investment from City Hall in policing, which they say is more than double the amount under the previous Mayor Boris Johnson.

It also includes £400,000 to progress development for West London Orbital and £100m to deliver free school meals for all London’s state primary school children in 2026-27, the fourth year of the scheme to make sure London’s primary age children were not going hungry.

READ ALSO: Mayor of London allocates funds for West London Orbital

READ ALSO: Sadiq Khan announces free school meals for all primary schoolchildren in London

The proposed increase in Council Tax is £20.13 a year for an average Band D household, but the Mayor’s precept is added to the tax set by the local authority, so Council Tax overall will be increasing by more than that.

Chiswick’s Neighbourhood Police team out on the street in December

Tackling mobile phone theft

While there has been significant progress in reducing key crimes such as knife crime and personal robbery, which are both down by 15 per cent in the 12 months to November 2025 compared to the same periods the previous year, and homicides, which have fallen to the lowest rate per capita since records began, the statistics show that phone theft has risen over recent years.

The theft of phones by street gangs is fuelled by an international criminal trade in handsets and Mayor Khan has asked the Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime and the Metropolitan Police to work together on a package of measures to try and reduce it.

Strategies include enforcement blitzes, pro-active targeting of known offenders, and the use of drones and new specialist police using e-bikes to pursue suspects in the West End, where 40 per cent of all mobile phone thefts occur.

The Mayor’s office says:

‘Hundreds of extra police officers are now on patrol after dark at busy hotspots working closely with retailers, restaurants clubs, bars and local councils to keep London safe’.

The draft budget also includes the new £2.4m package of support for victims and survivors of Child Sexual Exploitation announced late last year.

READ ALSO: Political row erupts over historical allegations of grooming gangs in Hounslow

Mayor of London Sadiq Khan

Mayor wants more money from central government for policing

Sir Mark Rowley, Metropolitan Police Service Commissioner, warned the London Assembly in 2024 that “eye-watering choices” would have to be made about cuts to policing in London if the government and City Hall did not give them more money.

Sir Mark told the London Policing Board the Met’s £450m funding gap represented over 10 % of its budget for policing London. Sadiq Khan also warned the Metropolitan Police was facing a “massive black hole” in its funding.

In recent years the proportion of the policing budget paid for by central government and that paid by the Mayor of London’s office has shifted.

When Sadiq Khan was elected in 2016, roughly 81 % of funding for the police in London came from national government and 19 % from regional government. This is now around 75 % from national government and 25 % from City Hall.

Launching his draft budget Mayor Khan said this Government had provided a bigger increase in funding for the Met than over the course of the whole of the previous government (2010-2024).

He welcomed the Government’s additional neighbourhood police funding, which would mean 150 more officers and 100 more PSCOs working in neighbourhood policing teams in London subject to the final, total Home Office allocation being confirmed.

But he said more national funding was needed and he would continue to make the case for the investment the Met needed.

“Bearing down on crime and keeping Londoners safe is my top priority as Mayor. That’s why I’m taking the difficult decision to increase council tax to provide crucial funding for the police.

“This will help to implement a major crack down on phone theft – with more resources to smash the phone theft gangs – as well as to ensure we can build on the significant progress we’re making to reduce knife crime, gun crime, homicides and burglary in the capital.

“In total, I plan to invest a record-breaking £1.22bn from City Hall on policing so that we can continue building a safer London for everyone”.

The Final Draft Budget is due to be published on 18 February 2026 and considered by the Assembly on 26 February, at which point the Council Tax precepts will be confirmed.

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