‘Party politics’: Sadiq Khan on second summons over Dame Cressida Dick’s Met Police exit

Sadiq Khan has accused the City Hall Tory group of playing “party politics” after being summonsed for a second time to answer questions about the departure of former Met Police chief Dame Cressida Dick.

Members of the Assembly’s police and crime committee voted on Tuesday in favour of using a unique legal power to summons the Mayor of London to appear at a meeting on December 13, where failure to attend could result in a fine or a three month prison sentence.

This is the second time the committee has used the legal power to put questions to Sadiq Khan over the circumstances surrounding the former Met Commissioner’s resignation, having never been used on a sitting mayor before.

Speaking at an event at Trafalgar Square on Wednesday the mayor said that he “doesn’t resign at all” from losing confidence in Dame Cressida.

“If the Tories want to play party politics then that’s for them to do,” he said.

“The Conservative Party may support Cressida Dick, I don’t.

“I’m on the side of those Londoners - those black Londoners, those women and girls, the LGBT+ community who lost confidence in our police service and wanted change.

“I’m on the side of Mina Smallman, of Bibaa and Nicole.

“I’m on the side of the women who are victims of not just violence against them, but see misogyny, discrimination, homophobia and racism from some of our police service.

“Systemic cultural issues [were] not being addressed by the former commissioner,” he added.

The committee has invited Dame Cressida, former HM Chief Inspector of Constabulary Sir Tom Winsor and former Home Secretary Priti Patel MP to attend the meeting.

Last week Mr Khan faced three hours of grilling over a report written by Sir Tom that found he had “breached due process” and committed an “abuse of the power conferred upon him”, after the commissioner was “intimidated” into quitting.

Susan Hall, chair of the police and crime committee, said it was an “important” step to summons the mayor and that he had “more questions” to answer following the first session.

She said: “We found the first summons meeting useful in our scrutiny of decisions made by the mayor and hope that the documents we have summonsed from him will further support this important work.

“However, we believe that there are more questions the mayor needs to answer concerning the resignation of the former commissioner.

“The Assembly needs to do its job of scrutinising the issues that matter to London and finding out whether lessons need to be learned for the future.”

Six members of the police and crime committee - including all four Conservative members, the one Lib Dem member and one Green Party member – voted in favour of summonsing the mayor for a second time.

While all four Labour members voted against.