Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether she intends to provide further funding to the Metropolitan Police's Operation Martello programme.

Hotspots policing is a key, evidence-based tactic that should be embedded in mainstream activity, forming a central component of the Neighbourhood Policing Guarantee (NPG). As a result, we are transitioning hotspot activity from a grant funded programme into mainstream practice.

To support this transition to mainstream activity, the wider reforms being taken forward by this government will put 13,000 more neighbourhood officers into roles by the end of this Parliament to tackle local crime and increase patrolling. Total funding to police forces in England and Wales will be up to £18.4 billion in 2026-27, an increase of up to £834 million compared to the 2025-26 police funding settlement. This equates to a 4.7% cash increase and a 2.7% real terms increase in funding. The Metropolitan Police will receive up to £3,991.2m of funding, an increase of £184.1 million compared to 2025-26. The additional officers being delivered through the Neighbourhood Policing Guarantee will support this shift, and we will continue working with forces this year on the practicalities of mainstreaming hotspot activity.

As we mainstream hotspot patrolling, we are also continuing to drive efforts to halve knife crime in a decade by focusing on tackling the worst affected areas via the Knife Crime Concentrations Fund (KCCF), directing investment where it will reduce knife crime most effectively.

As announced in Protecting lives, building hope: a plan to halve knife crime, this fund will be £26.25m in FY 2026-27, with allocations directed to those force areas with the highest knife crime volumes over the last three years and which together make up 90% of total knife crime across England and Wales. The Metropolitan Police Service has been allocated £8,185,952 through the KCCF in 2026-27.