On behalf of the London Assembly Liberal Democrat group, Caroline Pidgeon has formally responded to the Metropolitan Police on their Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG) Action Plan.
Caroline said:
"I believe it is essential that this plan is split into two separate strands of work. Firstly, the urgent internal actions the Met will take to tackle the internal issues, including cultural ones around misogyny and prejudice that have led to such a fall in confidence. The Met then needs to produce a separate plan on tackling VAWG across London, after consultation and engagement with organisations and groups working in the area of VAWG.
"After all, if women continue to have such poor levels of confidence in the Met, any and all actions the force takes in terms of how they police VAWG will be fundamentally undermined. We need a police force we can trust, and that must start with a wholesale shake up of culture in the Met, which simply must be the priority and needs to be a separate workstream from the actions and plans to address VAWG more widely across London."
