Khan urges campaigning Tory MPs to focus on cost of living crisis
MAYOR WARNS OF ‘MANAGED DECLINE’ UNLESS GOVERNMENT SUPPORTS TRANSPORT FOR LONDON
LONDON mayor Sadiq Khan has raised concerns the government will take their ‘eye off the ball’ in dealing with the cost-of-living crisis as Tory MPs jostle to become the next prime minister.
The Conservative Party announced on Monday (11) that a new UK prime minister to replace Boris Johnson will be announced on September 5, with 11 hopefuls currently vying for the job.
However, Khan said last Friday (8) with inflation soaring and people struggling with food and energy costs, the lead up to winter could see the government fail to offer people the necessary support as MPs spend the next two months campaigning to be prime minister.
“I am really worried about this party’s priorities, I think Boris Johnson should go now. Deputy prime minister (Dominic Raab) should be prime minister until the Conservative Party chooses their new leader,” Khan told Eastern Eye.
“There are major issues the government needs to focus on. We need support for TfL[transport for London], the money we have from the government runs out on Wednesday (13).
“We need revenue support for 20222023 with long-term capital debt. If we don’t get that than they’re taking their eye off the ball, they are being anti-London.”
Khan said transport secretary Grant Shapps, who on Tuesday (12) dropped out of the race to replace Johnson as prime minister, had not responded to the mayor’s request for an urgent meeting.
The mayor warned that unless a deal was in place by Wednesday then he would ‘press the button on a managed decline’ which could see one in five buses taken off the streets and an entire Tube line closed.
“The managed decline of TfL would be catastrophic for Londoners who rely on public transport. It would be bad for our city, bad for our economy and bad for our country,” said Khan. “The priority has to be our recovery. The worrying thing is we’ve had a change of chancellor, the prime minister has now stepped down, there’s chaos in the government.”
The mayor was speaking last week at a Citizens Advice Bureau in Hackney where he announced £2.3 million funding for London Citizens Advice and London Legal Support Trust (LLST) to provide support to tens of thousands of Londoners dealing with cost of living crisis.
Latest polling shows that 30 per cent of Londoners say they are “just about managing” while 17 per cent are “financially struggling”. One employee, who has worked at the centre in Hackney for over 30 years, said she had never experienced this kind of crisis before.
Chair of the London Citizens Advice Steering Group, Suzanne Hudson, said demand for the charities’ advice is “soaring”. “In difficult times, accessing information and advice can prevent problems from becoming crises,” she said. “Our services are here to provide support for people when they need it and this funding will enable us to help more Londoners.”
It is hoped the funding will allow organisations to increase the capacity of their work, enabling 35,000 more Londoners to get support.
The funding will mean the 28 London Citizen Advice Centres in London will be able to increase the number of advisors they have available.
They will also be able to expand support to community organisations like the Tamil Welfare Association Newham (TWAN) which helps people in need from the Tamil community.
Nezahat Cihan, CEO of London Legal Support Trust, said without specialist advice, vulnerable Londoners risk ‘spiralling.’
“Specialist advice is vitally important in helping empower people to tackle issues, including debt, rent arrears, housing problems, Universal Credit errors, and more,” she explained.
The mayor said he will spend more than £80 million this year to help struggling Londoners and “prevent more people falling into poverty”.
This includes more than £50m to tackle fuel poverty, more than £20m to improve security for private renters and house Londoners who are rough sleeping or homeless, more than £5m to connect Londoners with welfare advice, and £400,000 to tackle food insecurity.
He is also spending £400m this year on skills and employment programmes to support Londoners to find more secure and better paid work.
However, Khan warned that this would not be enough and urged the government to provide further support.
“We need to make sure we address this crisis. Londoners are struggling to make ends meet and, as a consequence, things are getting worse for some families,” he said. “Today we have heard about families getting into debts in order to put food on their tables and as a result lose their homes and end up homeless. Why give a little later on when we can take action now and stop this from happening.
“That’s why we need the government to step up and do simple things like freeze rents for the next two years, saving families £3,000 in London. They could increase Universal Credit by £20 as they did at the end of the pandemic. They could increase welfare benefits in line with inflation. They could make sure those children that receive free school meals get help during the summer holidays. Simple things they can do make a big difference.”