…as MPs quiz Mayor on finances

“I think negotiations would be slightly easier if I wasn’t standing for re-election as Mayor next May,” Sadiq Khan admitted to the House of Commons Transport Select Committee on July 22.

The Mayor of London was being quizzed by MPs about the impact of COVID-19 on Transport for London.

Discussing negotiations relating to the £1.1 billion bailout by Government that lasts until mid-October, as well as a £500 million loan, Khan added: “What concerns me is the Government may be in danger of really jeopardising the devolution settlement in the interests of party politics, and I’d ask them not to.”

Khan is seeking more fiscal devolution for London: “In 2015, the then-Mayor of London Boris Johnson agreed TfL would lose its operating grant, which in

2010 was £3.3bn per year.

“About 80% of TfL’s services are contingent on fares coming in. To compare… in Paris it’s 37%, Madrid is 48%, New York is 38% and Singapore is about 20%.”

He told the TSC that preCOVID, four million passenger journeys per day were being made on London Underground, but that had now dropped to less than 20% of that figure. He expressed further concern for the system, in that “big employers are telling people to work from home for the next year”.

Khan claimed he told Secretary of State for Transport Grant Shapps on March 24 that TfL was set to lose £100m per week from fares and that it needed £600m every four weeks to keep TfL running. He said TfL’s cash reserves of £2.2bn would not have lasted long.

As part of the bailout, Khan must end the fares freeze he introduced. He denied that had cost TfL £700m, telling

MPs: “That is a figure I don’t recognise. I have read £620m in Tory literature.”

He also told the TSC that conversations were taking place between the Department for Transport, TfL and the Treasury over Crossrail. Khan explained that the already-delayed project was being further hampered by the pandemic.

As for other local authorities asking for the same levels of funding that London receives ( RAIL 908), Khan said: “This should not be London versus the rest of the country. The rest deserves more, but not at the expense of London.”