The Mayor must roll out CCTV on all Central line trains as a matter of urgency to keep people safe from sexual assault, the London Assembly has said.

There were 348 reported sexual assaults on the Tube in the eighteen months from July 2016 to January last year.

One hundred of those – more than one in four – were on the Central line alone.

Conservative assembly member Shaun Bailey, who proposed a motion to speed up camera installation at the Assembly on Thursday, said the Mayor must take action.

The Tory mayoral candidate said: “In a climate where many women feel they don’t even want to report for umpteen different reasons, we have to show them that reporting is worthwhile.

“There can be an outcome that is worth them taking that brave step and saying that they have been attacked.”

Transport for London (TfL) will begin installing cameras on Central line trains next year, as part of a wider £350 million upgrade.

The rollout is due to finish in 2023 – but yesterday, London Assembly members unanimously called on the Mayor to act faster.

Their motion also highlighted how quickly CCTV footage can be deleted, thanks to an amendment from Green assembly member Sian Berry.

Ms Berry said TfL keeps footage for “wildly different times” across its network – ranging from a month in some stations to just three days on Tube trains and trams.

She said as a result TfL is “losing evidence every day that we don’t need to”.

The Green mayoral candidate said: “If someone is assaulted and it takes them a little while to pluck up the courage to report it, the evidence could already be deleted if we don’t do something more about it.”

Siwan Hayward, director of policing for TfL said the transport network and the British Transport Police “work tirelessly” to prevent sexual assaults, with 3,000 police and police community support officers on the network.

She said: “More undercover patrols take place on the Central line than any other line and a programme of work is underway to install CCTV on the line as quickly as possible from 2020.”

But a spokesperson for TfL stressed that station CCTV is more useful in catching offenders than footage from trains, because it often gives a clearer image of a suspect’s face.

There are already cameras at Central line stations, and across the network.

A spokesperson for the Mayor said Sadiq Khan takes sexual assault on London’s public transport “extremely seriously”.

He said: “Through major campaigns like ‘Report it to stop it’ TfL is putting an unprecedented focus on tackling unwanted sexual behaviour on London’s public transport and is encouraging thousands more victims to come forward and report offences – with over 1,000 arrests being made since the campaign began.”