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Cost of living: What help does London need and how can its parliamentarians help?

The All-Party Parliamentary Group for London held an instructive meeting on Monday with boroughs, businesses and a host of voluntary organisations in attendance
Dave Hill

“Good day for visiting the House of Commons,” one of the people from London Councils remarked on Monday as I entered the ornate and over-warm Committee Room 5. It was a wry reference to Chancellor Hunt confirming in the House of Commons earlier in the day that the calamitous “new era” mini-budget of ex-Chancellor Kwarteng was well and truly dumped, and warning of painful public spending decisions to come.

I hadn’t yet processed the full rout of “Trussonomics”, having walked from Bank station without consulting my phone and passed New Scotland Yard on the way, where BBC London’s Tim Donovan was preparing his piece to camera about the damning Louise Casey review of Met misconduct. There’s only so much moral authority disintegration you can digest before lunch.

In the room were gathered luminaries of the All-Party Parliamentary Group for London (APPG), London Councils chair Georgia Gould, Trust for London chief executive Manny Hothi and Stephen Jones, policy and research a manager at the London Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LCCI).

APPG co-chair Florence Eshalomi (Lab) observed, with ecumenical understatement, that there was “a lot going on” and expressed relief that her fellow London MP Paul Scully (Con) continues to be minister for London despite the ongoing government turmoil. But new uncertainties had entered the room. How will Hunt’s financial management affect London and Londoners and what should the APPG do about it?

The gathering was billed as a London cost of living event – a timely one, given, as Eshalomi pointed out, that it is London Challenge Poverty Week. Every available seat was filled by an array of London-centrics from local authorities, third sector bodies and public affairs firms. As if inflation wasn’t enough of a concern, there was now talk of public spending cuts and a “targeting” of energy bill support.

Hothi said that across the UK as a whole the crisis has already “pushed more people into poverty than any event this century”, with those on the lowest incomes suffering most. And that’s even before the coldest months arrive. He stressed that good quality advice can help people get by as can good government policy. Better targeting requires “a social tariff”, he said with those on lower incomes “paying a lower price cap”.

Camden Council leader Gould, who speaks persuasively about what local government can learn from responding to the pandemic, said the cost of living surge comes “on the back of years of rising poverty” with the coalition government’s benefits cap playing an early part. “Those who were already facing poverty, whose income was lower than their basic outgoings, are now in a truly terrible situation,” she said. “We’re seeing the level of destitution increase.”

She spoke of “children who have one meal a day, which is their free school meal, and they have to survive on that. Or mums who are facing malnutrition as they struggle to ensure their kids can eat”. Furthermore, Gould said the reach of hardship is increasing. “People who were previously donating to food banks are now finding they have to use them.”

Boroughs themselves are under yet more financial pressure, with a collective £300 million worth of cuts lined up for this financial year and £700 million next, Gould said, and that’s “before any further announcements”. Scully has been quoted saying there is still “fat” in local authority budgets. Ominous if true. Gould wants no more cuts and instead “an increase in funding for councils so we can provide that to communities”.

Stephen Jones described a plethora of pressures on London businesses, the vast majority of which are, as he stressed, at the small and “micro” end of the scale. LCCI members are seeing large increases in the prices of raw materials as well as energy, and then there are borrowing costs. “A lot of businesses took on debt during the pandemic to try and get through,” he explained, and no they’re having to look at taking on more amid hikes in interest rates.

And, of course, inflation – which it was announced today hit 10.1% last month, driven by much higher food prices – is leading to employees seeking pay rises which companies are not in great shape to provide. “Very, very difficult discussions between employers and their staff,” are taking place, Jones said. Yes, energy bill support for businesses until next April was very welcome, but a big lesson from Covid was “the need to avoid cliff edges,” he warned.

The other co-chair, Bob Neill, invited questions from members of the audience, including a representative of the 4 in 10 Child Poverty Network, who emphasised the huge yet often under-recognised importance of childcare costs, the charity London Sport – whose chief executive Emily Robinson said her members had taken on responsibilities for feeding people during Covid “and they are feeding people now” – and a member of Hornsey & Wood Green MP Catherine West’s team, who spoke of rising poverty and lengthening social housing waiting lists across Haringey.

What impact can the APPG London have? London Councils provides the group’s secretariat, a manifestation of the connection between the capital’s parliamentarians and its local authorities. It was plain from the attendance that London’s voluntary and public sector networks are gathering themselves for another huge support effort as Covid is succeeded by the next massive test of the city’s economic and social resilience.

What should the APPG be asking of a calamitous national government? What are its chances of getting it?

Photo from APPG London Twitter feed.

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Categories: News
Tags: Catherine West, child poverty, childcare, Florence Eshalomi, Georgia Gould, London Chamber of Commerce & Industry

Richard Brown: London’s housing market strains are multiplying and something has to give

Soaring mortgage costs will outweigh the benefit of falling house prices and private sector rents are spiralling
Richard Brown

Fiscal, political and financial events are coming at us pretty fast right now, so it is easy to feel disorientated. But as the screech of U-turns fades and the smoke of burning policies clears, we already seem to be in a world that has fundamentally shifted from the stability of more than a decade of low interest rates.

Bank of England base rates, which have been below 1% for nearly 15 years, are already above 2% and some forecast they will rise as high as 6% next year (though expectations may be starting to fall, following the Chancellor’s latest statement). Mortgage rates have shot up too, with fixed-rate offers already jumping from 2% to more than 6%.

It is true that interest rate rises were already expected, but the chaos following the previous Chancellor’s “fiscal event” in late September means rises have been faster and sharper than most anticipated. What does this mean for the capital?

There’s not much good news, I’m afraid. Firstly, according to the Resolution Foundation, costs will rise sharply for those households whose fixed rate deals come to an end soon. A total of 5.1 million households nationwide – around 60% of all households with mortgages – have deals that run out before the end of 2024.

Londoners in this group will face the steepest rises, with average annual costs rising by £8,000. The capital has the lowest proportion of households with mortgages in England, but even so, there were around 1,000,000 mortgaged households in London in 2020, so around 600,000 of those could be facing a huge hike in the costs of their mortgages, assuming exit from fixed rate deals mirrors the national pattern. The impact will be selective but brutal.

At the same time, house prices are widely expected to fall – and to fall faster in London than elsewhere – as rising mortgage costs delay purchases or even force some sales. The top of the market is still booming, but there are dark clouds on the horizon. Some analysts have predicted London prices falling by as much as 12% by the end of 2024.

At first sight, this looks like it could be good news – at least for first-time-buyers, who paid an average of £440,000 for London properties last year. If those predictions of a 12% price drop were borne out across the market, this figure would fall to £387,000 by the end of 2024 and imply a (10%) deposit of £39,000 rather than £44,000. Together with the impact of Stamp Duty reductions announced in the ill-fated “mini-budget” – still standing at the time of writing, but anything could happen – this would reduce cash move-in costs by around £10,000.

But the impact of this possible saving would be rapidly wiped out by higher mortgage costs. The monthly cost of a 90% mortgage on a £440,000 property is around £1,777 on the basis of a 2.5% interest rate. If and when rates rise to 5%, even a £387,000 property would cost £2,036 per month – £250 more than now, and around two thirds of take-home pay for someone earning £50,000 a year.

For those buyers lacking the family wealth or savings to afford a deposit, falling prices and stamp duty cuts may help a first tentative foot onto the ladder. But the burden of those higher mortgage costs will soon wipe out those savings. Behind every silver lining, another cloud.

With a sharp fall in property values comes the threat of “negative equity”, a thoroughly unwelcome revival from the tail end of the last century. Negative equity – a term to describe when the value of a home is lower than the mortgage secured against it – was estimated to have hit around 40% of properties in London in the early 1990s.

A recent report by property analyst Neal Hudson suggests that a 20% fall in property prices would put 10% of London mortgages in the red. Again, the figure is higher than for other regions because prices in the capital have grown relatively slowly over the past five years, meaning recent buyers have had less chance to build up a buffer of equity.

Although negative equity is unpleasant and unsettling, it only becomes an acute issue if you are seeking to sell or remortgage a property. However, rising mortgage costs could force some sellers’ hands, particularly London’s newest buyers, who are those most stretched in terms of affordability and least cushioned by historically rising prices.

Private sector renters have it tough as well: rents are surging as landlords seek to pass on rising borrowing costs and as competition for properties intensifies, partly driven by a post-pandemic bounce. Some central London letting agencies already report more than 80 enquiries for each rental property, up from 16 in September 2019. As people delay purchases or – in a worst case scenario – see mortgaged properties repossessed, demand for rentals is likely to increase.

Something, you feel, will have to give. There will come a point when landlords will be unable to pass rising costs on to tenants or tenants will simply be unable to pay. Landlords may be forced to sell, as will some first-time buyers, which could feed a spiral of declining property values. Again, this has its attractions but raises the question of who will be able to buy when interest rates remain high?

London property prices may be overdue a correction (that is, a fall), but while interest rates continue to rise, it will be London’s private renters and first time buyers who will be most at risk of losing their home. Sadiq Khan has already renewed calls for rent controls and more funding for affordable housing as market supply stalls.

After the 2008/09 financial crisis a “mortgage rescue scheme”, administered in London by the previous Mayor, allowed housing associations to take a stake in properties to avoid repossessions. It had limited take-up in London and was closed early. But in a city that already has four times the national rate of homelessness, government action may again be needed to soften the blow.

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Categories: Analysis
Tags: housing, private rented housing, Resolution Foundation

Sadiq Khan affordable homes programme must again break record to hit target

The London Assembly's housing committee has been examining the latest figures
Charles Wright

Earlier this year Sadiq Khan trumpeted his “record-breaking” performance on delivering new affordable housing in the capital, with 18,722 new homes getting underway in 2021/22, more than in any year since 2003.

But he will need to break his own record again by March next year to hit his overall target of starting 116,000 new homes between 2016 and 2023, according to the London Assembly’s annual affordable housing monitor report, published today.

The report looks in detail at City Hall’s progress with spending almost £9 billion allocated by the national government for new homes since 2016 – £4.82 billion for 116,000 homes to be started by March next year, and a further £4 billion to start 35,000 homes between 2021 and 2026, with the cash going to housing associations and, increasingly, London’s local councils.

To date, the monitoring report says, 91,000 affordable homes with City Hall funding have been got underway towards the 2016 to 2023 target, leaving a record 25,000 starts required this year. And while £3.4 billion of the 2021 to 2026 allocation had been earmarked for a further 29, 456 homes, none have so far been started.

Quizzed about the figures by the Assembly’s housing committee today, Mayor Khan’s deputy for housing, Tom Copley, struck a warning note, saying the now former Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng’s mini-budget or “fiscal event” has had “a direct impact on our ability to deliver affordable homes for Londoners”.

Copley said, “Every time the government makes a statement” the result is that “the path to hitting the target narrows”. He added: “It is even more difficult now for our delivery partners to borrow. The mood has never been so bleak. The big challenge is the appetite of our partners to take on risk. It’s very difficult to make predictions with so much volatility out there.”

The Assembly’s analysis shows just over half of the 18,722 homes started in 2021/22 with mayoral funding were for social rent or London Affordable Rent with levels set at roughly 50 per cent of market rents, reflecting a continuing shift towards funding cheaper tenures.

Across the whole programme to 2021/22, the proportion of shared ownership or London Living Rent homes for middle earners reduced by 14%, the data shows, while half of the 35,000 homes in the 2021 to 2026 programme will be for social rent, including a new target for 20,000 council homes by 2024. Copley said this was the right decision because “that is the type of housing that is most needed in London” even though it means there will be fewer affordable homes of all types built altogether.

As the report points out, with social housing requiring more public funding per unit, “overall there will be 70% fewer houses built…during 2021-26 compared to the previous programme,” with rising costs and workforce shortages also adding to the pressure on numbers.

The report also shows 10,252 new affordable homes completed in 2021/22, again a record number since Khan took office, with 3,291 at social or London Affordable Rent and some 45,000 completed over the programme as a whole, amounting to 35% of the target.

Challenged over speed at which housing projects are actually completed, Copley told the committee that “Many of the developments funded by City Hall are large, complex schemes”. And asked why a larger number of family-sized homes aren’t being funded, he said more should be coming under the 2021 to 2026 programme, “but larger homes cost more money – to deliver big numbers of family homes we are going to need more money”.

Southwark saw the most affordable homes started, with 2,090 underway, followed by Newham with 1,854, Ealing with 1,658, Barnet with 1,207 and Barking & Dagenham with 941.

At the other end of the league were Richmond, where just 48 were started, Sutton, with 65, Bromley with 136, Islington with 141 and Kingston with 157. Newham, with 1,156, saw the most homes completed, followed by Croydon with 814, Ealing with 743, Brent with 569 and Wandsworth with 528.

The need for family housing is also highlighted, a regular concern for the committee, with “many Londoners faced with living in homes too small for their needs,” according to the report. Housing providers are not required to report bedroom numbers, but estimates in the report show three or more bed homes making up 15% of affordable homes started in 2021/22.

The report also sets Khan’s record figures in the wider context of continuing shortfalls in housebuilding in the capital, alongside rising private rents and sale prices.

The Mayor’s London Plan, the blueprint for development in the city, set a target of 52,000 new homes a year, itself reduced at public inquiry from City Hall’s estimates of housing need, some 66,000 new homes annually, including 31,000 at social rents. But 2021/22, according to government figures, saw just 37, 183 new homes of all tenures underway overall.

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Categories: News
Tags: affordable housing, housing, London Affordable Rent, Sem Moema, Tom Copley

London Labour: Parliamentary candidate selection round up

Although several contests are still in progress across the capital, it is already clear that the left of the party is having a hard time of it
Morgan Jones

A recent Survation poll predicted that, on current numbers, Labour would pick up every seat in London at the next election bar one (Twickenham, which would stay in the hands of the Liberal Democrats). That outcome is unlikely but, nonetheless, it seems fair to say Labour fancy their chances in a large number of the 21 Conservative-held seats in the capital, particularly given the results of May’s local elections, where Labour won Barnet and Wandsworth from the Tories.

Labour is currently selecting its candidates for the next general election, likely to be held in 2024. A number aspirant MPs have already been chosen while selection races are still taking place in others.

In Hendon, Labour re-selected its 2019 candidate David Pinto Duschinsky. The closest London’s class of 2024 has to a Red Prince, this charismatic prospective parliamentary candidate (PPC) is the son of political commentator Michael Pinto Duschinsky. A former advisor to Alastair Darling, the younger Pinto Duschinsky will have to overturn a majority of 4320 votes to unseat the Tory incumbent Matthew Offord.

The 2019 Labour candidate for Chingford & Woodford Green will also get another opportunity. Faiza Shaheen, the former director of the now defunct trade union-funded think tank CLASS turned NYU and LSE academic, fought a spirited campaign against former Tory leader Iain Duncan Smith in her north east London home seat, losing by 1262 votes. She is, notably, the only candidate of the party’s left who has yet secured selection.

In Cities of London & Westminster, often known as “Two Cities”, Rachel Blake won a close race for selection. A councillor in neighbouring Tower Hamlets, Blake is politically moderate (she backed Lisa Nandy for leader in 2020) and well respected for her work as a council cabinet member. In May, she retained the Bow East seat she has held since 2014 in the face of Labour’s defeat by the Aspire Party. Labour fancies its chances against the Tory incumbent Nickie Aiken in Two Cities, but will have to avoid getting squeezed by the Liberal Democrats, who came second in 2019 with Chuka Umunna as their candidate, in order to win.

In Camberwell & Peckham – which even in 2019 returned a Labour majority of 33,780 – Harriet Harman is standing down after 40 years in parliament. The race to replace her as Labour’s candidate – and, barring some earth shattering change in political circumstance, its MP – has been hotly contested, and with the announcement on 5 October of the long list, it has also become controversial.

Maurice Mcleod, a councillor and anti-racism campaigner had the backing of the organised left, having won an internal primary. He also enjoys the backing of Unite the Union and ASLEF and a number of MPs, and has a strong local profile as councillor. Mcleod expected to make the long list but didn’t, an outcome viewed by many as the result of a factional attempt to keep the left’s of the party out of contention. Interestingly, south London MPs Fleur Anderson and Florence Eshalomi – neither of them from the party’s left- have expressed sadness at this decision.

Who did make the longlist? Miatta Fahnbulleh, a Liberia-born economist with an impressive CV – she has worked at the cabinet office and the IPPR, and is now director of the New Economics Foundation think thank – is considered to be on the soft left of the party and is a strong contender. Johnson Situ, a Unison-backed local councillor and advisor to Sadiq Khan is probably the strongest of the moderates. Also in that lane are local councillor Peter Babadu, and council cabinet member Evelyn Akoto.

Marina Ahmad, currently London Assembly member for Lambeth & Southwark (a seat she won having beaten Mcleod to the for selection, also made the longlist and has the backing of the GMB trade union. Neeraj Patil, a former mayor of Lambeth, is in the line up too.

In a seat with a large black community, the strong feeling in the party is that this seat should have a black candidate. Labour does particularly poorly at selecting black men. Mark Hendrick, David Lammy and Clive Lewis are the party’s only black male MPs and, despite work by campaign group the 1987 caucus on this issue, journalist Michael Crick recently noted that no black man has been selected in a winnable seat since 2011.

The selection contest of Kensington also looks particularly competitive. Former MP Emma Dent Coad – who won by 20 votes in 2017, only to lose the formerly safe Tory seat by 150 votes in 2019 – having announced she would be running for selection again, has today tweeted that “the Labour Party has blocked me from restanding”. On the party’s left, and somewhat gaffe prone – ranging from alleging that Prince Harry could not fly a helicopter to a more troubling series of comments about Conservative mayoral candidate Shaun Bailey which were widely regarded as racist – Dent Coad won regard for her campaigning in the aftermath of the Grenfell fire, but is likely to face a tough battle to contest her former seat again.

Other hopefuls include Hackney council cabinet member and My Life My Say founder Mete Coban, whose politics generally seem to be whatever you want them to be, former UN diplomat Salman Sheikh, and Joe Powell, co-founder of the Kensington Against Dirty Money campaign.

In Finchley & Golders Green, held since 2010 by the Tory Mike Freer, it would be deeply surprising to see anyone other than Sarah Sackman selected. A lawyer by trade, Sackman was the candidate in 2015, and ran what was widely regarded as an impressive and energetic campaign, upping Labour’s vote share against the national swing. The only other candidate with any traction is East Finchley councillor Arjun Mittra, who has picked up several local branch nominations.

Also hotting up is the race to represent Labour in Chipping Barnet, which Theresa Villiers holds with a majority of 1212. Emma Whysall, a local councillor who stood for the seat in 2017 and 2019, is running again. Also seeking selection is Dan Tomlinson, a senior economist at the Resolution Foundation and a Tower Hamlets councillor who led the erstwhile Labour council’s controversial Liveable Streets (low traffic neighbourhood) initiative in his former role as cabinet member for the environment. Josh Tapper, a 25 year-old who works in public affairs is alos in the field.

In Barking, where Margaret Hodge is retiring, a shortlist of two has been announced: long time and well respect council leader Darren Rodwell has long been the favourite, and will face off against councillor Josie Channer.

Another retirement seat in east London is Dagenham & Rainham, where Margaret Mullane, a councillor and office manager to the retiring MP Jon Cruddas, is the favourite. She is considered to be on the left of the party.

Image from London Communications Agency political map. Updated at 21:00.

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Categories: Analysis
Tags: Emma Dent Coad, Emma Whysall, Kensington, Labour

Amelia Staples: How Londoners are feeling about Brexit

A national poll about the impacts of leaving the European Union reveals distinctive and in some ways surprising London attitudes
Amelia Staples

In the 2016 referendum, London stood out as the most Remain-supporting region in Britain. Yet, despite Londoners’ widespread opposition to leaving the European Union, they are more open-minded than we might think and are anxious to make Brexit work.

New national polling by YouGov for psychological think tank NOUS this month finds that Londoners within the sample are less fatigued by Brexit discussions than other regions across the country, with only 19% of Londoners not wanting to hear our politicians talking about Brexit anymore, compared to 27% of the rest of the UK.

However, Londoners are feeling the weight of Brexit. Currently, 63% of them believe Brexit has had a negative impact on Britain, compared to a 55% national average. Four in five Londoners believe the British economy has weakened since January 2021, with 68% of them attributing Britain’s predicted economic recession to Brexit.

Londoners are also the most likely to report negative impacts on Britain’s trade with the EU post-Brexit. A majority of 54% said there had been a decline in trade with the EU, compared to 47% of the country at large, and more Londoners (68%) reported fewer goods being available in shops since Brexit.

On top of this, Londoners are experiencing the impacts on travel more acutely too. With a highly international population served by a number of airports, Londoners travel to EU countries more than people in other regions. As can then be expected, a total of 65% of residents in the capital – the highest proportion in the country – believe that travel has become more difficult post-Brexit, compared to 47% in the Midlands and Wales, the regions that report the least change in travel habits in the UK.

These negative personal experiences very likely play a role in Brexit’s deeper unpopularity in the capital, but also inform Londoners’ determination to make Brexit work.

It is clear that Londoners want change. Only 11% believe we should continue our current relationship with the EU. A clear majority, 59%, would like to revisit the terms of the Brexit deal. Contrary to stereotypes that London is out of sync with the rest of the country, some 55% of the national population also believe that the terms of the Brexit deal should be revisited in a sign of wider discontent with the situation as it stands.

Londoners are more open minded than we think about the issue, despite common assumptions that they live in a liberal bubble. They are more unsure than the people of any other region whether they identify as Leavers or Remainers, and identify less as Remainers than they did at the time of the referendum. The new Prime Minister should take note of the capital’s open willingness to work with Brexit rather than against it.

Amelia Staples works for NOUS (formerly Global Future).

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Categories: Analysis
Tags: Brexit, European Union, YouGov

Vic Keegan: The coffee house that came before the Gherkin

The site of one of the City's most famous landmarks has previously hosted other noted business hubs
Victor Keegan

In The Morning Post of 24 May 24, 1744 the following item appeared:

“This is to give notice that the House late in Threadneedle Street, near the Royal Exchange, is now open’d by the Name of the Virginia and Baltick Coffee-House, where all Foreign and Domestick News are taken in; and all Letters or Parcels, directed to Merchants or Captains in the Virginia or Baltick Trade will be carefully deliver’d according as directed.” 

This is one of the earliest records of what had previously been called the Virginia and Maryland coffee house, one of what eventually became nearly 3,000 coffee houses in London. It was wise to change its name to the Virginia and Baltick. Trade with the vast Baltic area, especially Russia, was booming while in America Britain’s colonial inheritance, Maryland included, would later be shattered by the looming War of Independence, which broke out in 1775.

Coffee houses were of immense importance. One sometimes wonders where the City of London would be today if they had not been invented. They were where financial deals were transacted, where businessmen (rarely, if ever, women) caught up with the news. Clerks in Parliament working for the coffee houses would race each other in hansom cabs to convey outcomes of vital parliamentary votes to their clients ahead of rivals. Money was at stake.

In 1810 the coffee house company moved to larger premises at the Antwerp Tavern, also in Threadneedle Street, and in 1903 to a new and lavishly decorated Exchange at St Mary Axe – the Baltic Exchange (main picture), which provided its members with a daily guide to what was going on in global shipping markets, from freight market prices to shipping costs or the settling of freight futures contracts. It was the last of the City institutions to abandon its trading floor to do business by telephone or on screens.

Pasted image 0 1

Disaster struck in 1992 when it was badly damaged by an IRA bomb, which killed three people and injured many more. At first, key parts of the structure were put into storage in the hope of constructing a new building around what remained of the hall and the façade, but in 1995 English Heritage dropped its insistence on a restoration when the damage turned out to be much greater than previously thought.

So, what to do with unwanted remains and a prime building site? Enter Sir Norman Foster with plans for a Millennium Tower, a 92- storey building that would have been the tallest in Europe. That soon bit the dust amid fears that it was simply too big for the skyline and, according to Heathrow, a danger to incoming aircraft. Just when the site at was starting to look jinxed a happy ending came along. The Foster partnership submitted a different plan for a smaller skyscraper. Nicknamed The Gherkin, it became an unmistakable modern classic at 30 St Mary Axe almost as soon as it was finished.

Meanwhile, the marvellous stained glass (below), which had survived the blast, was re-installed in the National Maritime Museum in keeping with the maritime history of the Baltic Exchange.

Screenshot 2022 10 15 at 11.11.49

And the rest of the salvaged material? Much of it – including stairs, marble columns, panelling, even telephone boxes – was purchased from an online platform for £800,000 by two Estonian entrepreneurs, Heiti Hääl and Eerik-Niiles Kross. They shipped it to Estonia in dozens of containers. Parts of it were showcased in an exhibition in 2016 and they hope to eventually incorporate it into a new office block in their homeland.

There is something rather wonderful about the heart of London’s historic Baltic Exchange being found a new home in…the Baltic.

This is the fourth article in a series of 20 by Vic Keegan about locations of historical interest in the Eastern City part of the City of London, kindly supported by the EC BID, which serves that area. On London’s policy on “supported content” can be read here.

Categories: Culture, EC BID supported series
Tags: City of London, St Mary Axe, The Gherkin, Threadneedle Street

Khan hints at possible revisions of London-wide ULEZ introduction

The Mayor appeared to recognise the validity of some of the concerns expressed about the timing and details of the next enlargement of the of the anti-pollution scheme
Charles Wright

Is a City Hall rethink over Sadiq Khan’s plans to extend the capital’s Ultra-Low Emission Zone (ULEZ) city-wide next year on the cards?

Transport for London’s consultation on the proposed enlargement closed just over a month ago having received 58,000 responses ahead of a planned final decision by the Mayor before the end of this year.

Critics of the plan have already seized on a press report claiming “leaked” data shows that two-thirds of respondents opposed the proposals and on TfL’s board hearing on Wednesday that the 10-week exercise had seen “a lot of campaign activity” both for and against the scheme.

Khan’s previous expansion of the ULEZ to cover inner London as far as the North and South Circular roads attracted just over 40,000 consultation responses, while his predecessor Boris Johnson’s consultation for the original central London ULEZ prompted some 16,000 comments.

Pressed by Conservative members of the London Assembly at yesterday’s monthly Mayor’s Question Time about the handling of responses – including suggestions that some comments might be “screened out” – Khan would not agree to open the process to “public scrutiny”, but did confirm it would be subject to independent analysis before its results were presented to him for consideration in a final report, along with options for action.

There would be no “predetermination”, he said, but countered that a separate City Hall poll published on Monday had showed a 51% majority of Londoners in favour of expanding the scheme compared to just 27% against it.

The expansion was about addressing the “triple challenges of improving air quality and public health, tackling the climate emergency, and reducing traffic congestion throughout Greater London,” he told Assembly Members (AMs). “Toxic air caused by road traffic is still leading to thousands of premature deaths a year, and the greatest number of deaths attributable to air pollution are in London’s outer boroughs, which the ULEZ doesn’t currently cover. And a majority believe the expansion should go ahead.”

But he conceded that a delay to the scheme’s August 2023 implementation date as well as a possible “grace period” before charges kicked in could be “in the mix” when TfL submitted its report and options for decision, with the need to get a scheme in place to help households and businesses pay to replace non-compliant vehicles a major consideration.

That was a key concern arising from the consultation, TfL officers said on Wednesday, alongside the need for more financial support for disabled drivers.

“No one wants to add to the problems people face,” Khan agreed, as Tory AMs suggested a new charge next year could hit lower-paid Londoners already facing a rising cost of living. And he confirmed to Keith Prince AM that a call from the London Region of the Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) for a 12 month “no charge” period until August 2024 alongside an “all-encompassing” scrappage scheme would also be considered.

The FSB had warned that up to one in five businesses currently using non-compliant vehicles could face closure, and their call was backed this week in a cross-party submission to Khan from two outer London MPs, Labour’s Jon Cruddas, representing Dagenham & Rainham, and Hendon’s Tory MP Matthew Offord, adding to the pressure for a delay. In a joint letter to Khan the two MPs wrote that the proposed timing of the expansion “could not be worse with a cost of doing business crisis facing many micro and small businesses”.

The Mayor promised to introduce “the biggest scrappage scheme feasible” when consultation on the expansion was launched, alongside calling for extra support from the government to help motorists, but no details are yet available.

The government has, to date, been unsupportive of Khan’s plans, with the latest TfL funding deal stipulating that capital grants it includes cannot be used to cover the costs of the scheme, leaving the hard-pressed transport authority to look elsewhere for the estimated £250 million required for its implementation.

What the whole of Thursday’s Mayor’s Question Time here.

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Categories: News
Tags: Jon Cruddas, Matthew Offord, pollution, Sadiq Khan, ultra low emission zone

Sadiq Khan defends Met scrutiny record from Conservative critics

The Mayor told the London Assembly the police inspectorate's recent interventions had vindicated his concerns and dismissed its use of legal powers against him as "politically motivated"
Dave Hill

Sadiq Khan has defended his performance as London’s police and crime commissioner, including in relation to the resignation of former Metropolitan Police commissioner Cressida Dick, and described the use of legal powers to force him to attend a forthcoming meeting of the London Assembly’s police and crime committee to be questioned about Dick’s departure as “politically motivated”.

In exchanges with Susan Hall, leader of the Assembly Conservative group, during Thursday’s Mayor’s Question Time session at City Hall, the Mayor rejected accusations that he had failed to act quickly enough on concerns he says he’d had about the Met. And asked by Hall if he was “confident that all the processes and procedures were followed properly regarding the former commissioner’s departure,” he said, “Yes I am”.

Hall’s questioning followed the publication last month of a review of the circumstances surrounding the departure of Dick, commissioned by the now former Home Secretary Priti Patel, which found that Khan “did not follow due process, and at times his behaviour was oppressive, unreasonable, entirely unacceptable and unfair” and that Dick was “intimidated” into stepping aside. Khan has strongly rejected the review’s criticisms, including in advance of their release.

Quoting the Police Reform and Responsibility Act (20111) which defines his responsibilities Khan told the Assembly he had fulfilled the legal requirement for him to ensure that the Met is “both efficient and effective” and to hold its commissioner to account “both for their performance and for the exercise of the functions of persons under their direction and control”.

A meeting of the Assembly’s police and crime committee last month voted narrowly to issue Khan with a summons notice to attend a future meeting to discuss the review, which was conducted by Tom Winsor, who was chief inspector of constabulary until March of this year. Conservative AMs were joined by a Liberal Democrat to form the majority required to take the step which, as Hall pointed out, has made him “the first Mayor to have been summonsed to the police and crime committee using this power”.

However, Khan retorted that the “so-called summons is politically motivated” and said he was “more than happy” to go before the committee. “You could have just picked up the phone and rung me,” he said, though Hall begged to differ.

The role of police and crime commissioner is included within the duties of London’s Mayors and delegated to the Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime, currently headed by deputy mayor Sophie Linden.

Rebutting Hall’s complaint that he had failed to act robustly enough over failings he says he had detected in the Met, Khan cited an action plan he had ordered for increasing trust and confidence in the Met, published in November 2020, his appointment of a victims’ commissioner, the creation of a child protection oversight group and his request that inspectors looked at the Met’s mishandling of its investigation of serial killer Stephen Port.

In June, the police inspectorate began formally monitoring the Met, a measure taken when a police service “is not succeeding in managing, mitigating or eradicating” causes of concern. Khan told the Assembly this development had “served to underline” what he believed the situation was with the Met and his view that “wide ranging reforms are needed”.

He expressed confidence that new commissioner Mark Rowley, who had made his first appearance before the police and crime committee the previous day, would bring these about. Rowley had told AMs that the Met had not been “robust and determined enough” about maintaining high standards.

Also at Mayor’s Question Time, responding to Tory AM Tony Devenish asking him how he and Rowley would work together to prevent Just Stop Oil protesters blocking streets in the capital, Khan said the Met had taken “swift action” over the weekend when bridges across the Thames were blocked, and told Devenish: “I don’t think they’re encouraging people to join their cause with some of the examples you refer to. If a fire engine gets delayed going to a fire and that leads to loss of life, how does that benefit the Just Stop Oil campaign?”

The whole of Mayor’s Question Time can be watched here.

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Categories: News
Tags: Mayor's Question Time, Metropolitan Police, Sadiq Khan, Sophie Linden, Susan Hall, Tony Devenish