- Mayor delivers keynote speech at Centre for London conference calling on more devolution for cities
- He criticises the Government’s ‘illegitimate’ undermining of local decision making during COVID pandemic
- London needs greater control over tax revenues to help reduce TfL’s overreliance on fares
Delivering his keynote speech at today’s Centre for London conference, the Mayor of London Sadiq Khan will call on the Government to fulfil its promise for the proper devolution of power and resources from Whitehall to cities and communities across the UK.
The Mayor’s speech will criticise the Government’s current approach of using COVID-19 to ‘hoard power in Whitehall’, instead of working in partnership with local authorities and mayors to tackle the pandemic in key areas, such as test and trace and economic support.
Sadiq has successfully resisted the Government’s attempts to force TfL to axe concessions for under 18s and over 60s, and force millions more Londoners to pay the Congestion Charge as conditions for a financial bailout needed as a result of the COVID pandemic. The Government went so far as to threaten to legislate to take control of TfL from the Mayor if he did not agree to their demands.
The Mayor has also spoken out against the Government’s ill-conceived and damaging overhaul of the planning system which has been dictated from Whitehall and will take away democratic control and local scrutiny from the planning process. Ministers are not merely hostile to elected devolved leaders, they are actively trying to undermine the UK’s long-standing devolution settlements.
In today’s Centre for London speech, the Mayor will characterise the Government’s approach as pitting different cities against each other to fight a zero-sum game over money. This is deflecting from the actual problem of ‘ensuring sufficient investment in all areas’.
Sadiq will focus on how the mayoralty was created with a strong democratic mandate, and will say that the Government’s recent attempts to undermine local decision making are ‘illegitimate and wrong’. His speech will conclude by saying that the only solution to building a better city and country from this pandemic is with much more meaningful devolution and a ‘weakening of the stranglehold of Whitehall’ – whether you live in London, Liverpool, Manchester or Sheffield. This will involve a ‘total re-set’ in the way the country is run.
The London Finance Commission, which reported both under the previous Mayor in 2013 and again in 2017, made a convincing case for fiscal devolution to London and the regions of England, particularly in relation to property taxes such as council tax, business rates and stamp duty. The recommendations were endorsed by Boris Johnson as Mayor at the time and other London government leaders, but have not yet been taken forward by the Government beyond some decentralisation of funding delivered through the business rates retention system.
The Mayor is calling on the Government to take forward these proposals for more devolution, including a commitment to allow TfL to diversify its income to reduce overreliance on fares by granting London greater control over a wider range of tax revenues to fund the transport network.
Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, said -
“This Government declared before the last election that the days of Whitehall knows best are over. Yet their conduct during this pandemic has shown they believe the opposite is true, with Ministers treating local leaders as adversaries or with suspicion, rather than as trusted partners.
“But worse than this, the Government has been using the cover of this national health emergency to undermine key parts of the devolution settlement – most notably by trying to control how London runs our world-renowned transport system.
“If COVID-19 and the failures of the test and tracesystem has taught us anything, it’s that hoarding power at a national level doesn’t work. If we are to build back better as a city and a country, cities and communities around the UK need much more meaningful devolution and a weakening of the stranglehold of Whitehall.
“Boris Johnson was a strong advocate of more devolution when he was Mayor of London – the whole country would now benefit from him putting his words into action.”
Ben Rogers, Director of Centre for London, said -
“Twenty years into London’s mayoralty, the devolution debate has never felt more fraught.
“The government should be helping London and other cities to take on more powers, not rolling back on progress made to date.
“Devolution makes decision-making more responsive, more efficient and more accountable than trying to run the country by remote control.
“And giving local leaders more power over taxes is fundamental; otherwise devolution is simply delegation of service delivery."
ENDS
NOTES TO EDITORS
Other mass transport authorities across the world have seen a fall in ridership during COVID-19, but nowhere else is as reliant on fares as we are in London. 72 per cent of TfL’s income is from fares – compare that to 38 per cent in New York or Paris. In Singapore, they’re reliant on fares for only 21 per cent of their transport funding.
City Hall’s submission to the Comprehensive Spending Review (CSR) lays bare the centrality of London’s key economic sectors to the UK’s prosperity. The capital’s economy accounts for a quarter of the UK’s total economic output and contributes a net £38.8 billion to the Treasury, with London’s creative industries generating £58.4 billion for the UK economy alone. When London succeeds, the UK succeeds and vice versa – and there can be no UK recovery from COVID-19 without a strong London recovery to drive it.
For every £1 spent on the London Underground investment alone, 55p is paid to workforces located outside London, with TfL contracts contributing around £6.4bn to the economy overall. London’s economic output is twice the size of the economies of Scotland and Wales put together. /press-releases/mayoral/londons-recovery-vital-for-uks-recovery
Details of the London Finance Commission reports and recommendations can be found here –
2013 - /press-releases-5563
In 2013, Mayor Boris Johnson endorsed the London Finance Commission proposals for more devolution saying - “We need to be able to plan, and to plan we must be able to see the future source of finance.
“Our problem at the moment is that we are engaged in endless hand-to-mouth negotiations with central government about penny packets of finance and have absolutely no certainty about anything beyond 2015.”
He said the reforms would boost the economy: “If local government has a share in the proceeds of growth in their areas, through the tax take, then they are more likely to pursue policies that will lead to growth — and that could be a considerable prize.”