London Mayor Sir Sadiq Khan has refused to say whether he backs an exploitation board that would work with councils to tackle grooming gangs.
The London Assembly had called on Sir Sadiq to form an exploitation board run by the Mayor's Office for Policing and Crime (MOPaC) with £1.5m of funding in the 2026-27 budget.
It comes after the Metropolitan Police Service last year committed to reviewing more than 9,000 historic cases of child sex abuse and reinvestigating them for evidence and patterns of grooming gang behaviour.
Despite being asked repeatedly, the mayor's office declined to say whether Sir Sadiq supported the proposal.
A spokesperson for the mayor said he had ‘led efforts to strengthen the protection of children from exploitation and harm in all its forms in London' and wanted ‘justice for every single victim of these horrific crimes'.
MOPaC's budget for reducing violence and criminal exploitation has been cut by £5.7m to £24.1m for 2026-27 and is expected to be reduced further to £22.3m in 2027-28 despite this being a ‘key' priority in Sir Sadiq's plan.
