‘Believe me, the bulldozers are a long way off’
Frontrunner to become next Prime Minister, Boris Johnson was out and about last week appealing to Conservative members whose votes he is trying to secure. While much of the leadership debate has been regarding Brexit and Mr Johnson’s personal life, our reporter JAMIE JUBERT took the chance to find out what a Boris premiership might mean
Why should Conservative members vote for you?
Johnson: I am the best candidate at this election to deliver Brexit and win back hundreds of thousands of people for the Conservatives who are thinking of voting for other parties. The good people want us to deliver a great Brexit, and that is what we are going to do.
Secondly, I am the best candidate to forge a new and exciting modern conservatism that is based on freemarket economics and fantastic public services.
Thirdly, I am the only candidate to beat Jeremy Corbyn – I have a record of beating the London Labour left in difficult circumstances. I defeated Ken Livingstone when the Conservatives were 17 points behind in London.
Many residents are anxious about Heathrow expansion. Will you lie down in front of the bulldozers to stop the third runway being built, like you said you would?
Believe me, the bulldozers are a long way off! Before any bulldozer rolls, the promoters of the third runway must meet very stringent legal obligations on noise pollution and air quality, which they do not currently meet. I will be watching very, very carefully the legal proceedings which are under way.
What assurance would you give residents concerned over the escalation of green belt development? Are the current laws working, and would you consider reviewing these as Prime Minister?
We are being too tough. We should not be imposing targets on councils that they are simply finding impossible to meet without building on the green belt, so we have to be much more sensitive in what we are doing.
The way to solve the problem is by putting in transport infrastructure which then allows you to liberate brownfield sites for development. Crossrail 2 is a fantastic project which the current inert Mayor of London is not advancing.
But if you did that, you’d have 200,000 new homes in the Lower Lea Valley that would all be on brownfield sites.
If you extended the Bakerloo line, which we were going to do, you could build lots of homes down in that part of London.
I extended the Northern line to Battersea — huge number of homes were built on what were already derelict sites. That’s the way to do it.
There will be many people looking to get on the property ladder but struggling to do so in this area due to astronomical prices. What changes would a Boris-led Government make to ensure locals could afford homes in the area they have been raised?
It’s not just about helping people to buy, but also increasing supply – and the way to do this is to enable development on fantastic brownfield sites.
Look what is happening around Battersea and Nine Elms — none of that would have happened if I had not put in the extension of the Northern Line, which enabled huge quantities of development to go ahead
I was able to do that by persuading the Treasury to let us borrow to fund the Northern Line, from the future tax revenues from businesses that would arrive in the area.
You fund the transport infrastructure from the future tax income.
You have talked extensively about income tax. What about the other kind of taxes? What changes will be made on inheritance tax laws?
The priority has got to be helping people on lower incomes wherever we can.
In London we had great success
with the living wage, which has massively expanded and became a big national project.
I want to lift the threshold for national insurance for the low-paid, but also you do need to look at the tax on people on the middle incomes.
Lots of people on middle incomes, such as nurses, head of maths departments and police inspectors, are being captured by the higher rate of tax, and I think we should be lifting them out of it and helping them. They are crucial public servants and I do not believe they should be paying the top rate of tax.