For British progressives, 2016 hasn’t been the greatest year. However, for Londoners in particular, there has been one notable ray of light in a year dominated by the darkness of right-wing populism; the election of Sadiq Khan as the third Mayor of London.
Wielding the largest personal mandate in UK political history, and the third largest personal mandate in Europe, Sadiq Khan has shown the way for the left to get back into power, and how we can put principles into practice.
His manifesto showed how a bold vision could put the powers of the Mayoralty to best use to truly make a difference to the lives of Londoners, and how genuine progressive victories can be won in City Hall, not just in Westminster.
Since being sworn in on the 7th May 2016, Sadiq Khan has delivered on numerous manifesto pledges and has gone further as well. On this post, I have put down what I consider to be his 30 best accomplishments of the first 7 months of his Mayoralty, and relevant reading for each of them.
Sadiq Khan is yet to deliver on another raft of his bolder pledges, such as the not-for-profit lettings agency, the public clean energy company ‘Energy for Londoners’, the skills taskforce ‘Skills for Londoners’ (which will be radically shaken up in 2019/20 once adult education spending is devolved to the capital) and the first-dibs policy for Londoners seeking to buy cheap homes.
However, his leadership and talent have so far begun to carve out and implement policy programmes that will lower the cost-of-living for millions of Londoners, keep people safe, tackle the capital’s air quality crisis and project London as an open, tolerant, united and dynamic city.
Sadiq Khan has only just begun. But he has already shown himself to be a class act, and I have no doubt that he will continue to deliver for the people of London.
Sadiq Khan’s 30 best achievements as Mayor so far
1. Establishing ‘Homes for Londoners’
Sadiq Khan has set up ‘Homes for Londoners’, in addition to beginning to pull together expertise for this body which will direct public & private funding towards affordable homes.
2. The Affordable Homes Programme
After securing £3.15bn of funding from the Treasury to spend over 4 and a half years, Sadiq Khan has set out his Affordable Homes Programme, which will fund a minimum of 58,500 Living Rent & Shared Ownership homes, and a minimum of 29,000 Affordable Rent homes. His Supplementary Planning Guidance ensures that at least 35% of new homes built are affordable, to rise to 50% by the end of the decade.
3. Giving residents a genuine say on estate regeneration
To ensure that Londoners are not shut out of local decision making, Sadiq Khan has published a draft Good Practice Guide to Estate Regeneration. This guide sets out to protect social housing supply, avoid full-scale demolition & reconstruction, carry out consultation & engagement early on & continuously throughout regeneration projects and protecting the rights of tenants & leaseholders. If implemented, it would represent a big overhaul in the estate regeneration process, giving people a voice throughout the process and carrying out such developments in the interests of residents.
4. Tackling homelessness in the capital
A ‘No Nights Sleeping Rough’ taskforce was set up in October, which aims to tackle the increase in London rough sleeping (up 7% since last year to to roughly 8,000). Sadiq Khan also announced a £50m fund to build 1,000 homes for people getting support for homelessness.
5. Better Boilers for Londoners
Sadiq Khan has launched the Better Boilers scheme to tackle fuel poverty in London. This £1m pot of money will fund the repair or replacement of homeowners’ boilers for free if they are inefficient or not working. The scheme will open in January, and is available to poorer Londoners who are on benefits.
6. Making London transport more affordable
One of the first announcements made by Sadiq Khan was that a new Hopper Ticket would be introduced, providing two journeys for the price of one within the hour, with technological advancements eventually allowing for an unlimited number of journeys by 2018. Initially, the measure will make 30 million journeys a year free. In addition, in line with one of his key manifesto pledges, all TfL fares have been frozen, saving families £200 over the next four years. The MoL has been heavily pushing for London DfT fares to also be frozen, and for the devolution of Southern Rail management so its fares can be frozen too.
7. Overhauling Transport for London
TfL has often been criticised as a flabby organisation. To deliver on savings to fund the four-year fare freeze and help TfL to cope financially once the government grant is phased out, Sadiq Khan published a radical business plan to reform & slim down TfL, which opens up new revenue streams from its property portfolio (while building 10,000 homes) and a new trading arm, strikes more affordable procurement deals and cuts back on managerial spending, all while investing in modernising the network.
Body-shaming advertisements, which can pressurise people to adhere to unhealthy body images, have been banned on the TfL network since July. Sadiq Khan has also, through TfL, established an Advertising Steering Committee to keep TfL’s advertising policy under review.
9. Biggest ever increase in step-free access on the Underground
Sadiq Khan has pledged £200m to put into a large increase in the number of step-free stations on the London Underground to 40% from 26%. Major tube stations have already seen step free access expanded to them (such as Tower Hill), others are already seeing transformations in progress (such as Finsbury Park) and current plans for expansion are also being brought forward to next year (such as Newbury Park). This will mean more than 100 stations will have step-free access, providing more choice and flexibility for many people across London.
10. Backing London cabbies
To ensure the capital’s black cab industry is able to compete with Uber, Sadiq Khan has announced that 100 new taxi ranks will be created by 2020, bringing the total to 600. To further boost the trade, 20 extra bus lanes will be available to cabbies, and taxi information will be added to online TfL journey planners.
11. Making London a byword for cycling
During the Mayoral election campaign, Sadiq Khan made a major point of saying he wanted to get more people cycling in the capital instead of driving, and he has begun to set out a road-map for achieving this, with £770m of funding to be invested in London cycling (this is equivalent to £17 per person — close to levels in the Netherlands & Denmark). So far, we have seen the appointment of the first full time commissioner for cycling and giving two new cycling superhighways the green light.
12. A strategy to get thousands of dangerous lorries off the road
To curb the large number of pedestrian & cyclist tragedies and make the streets of London much safer, Sadiq Khan has set out plans to introduce the HGV Direct Vision Standard — the first of its kind anywhere in the world. A 0-to-5 star rating will evaluate the level of vision the driver has of an HGV, and vehicles rated with 0–2 stars will be ‘zero star rated’, and be banned from the streets of London (there are 35,000 such vehicles that would be banned as of now) by 2020.
13. A tough plan to tackle poor air quality
In line with his pledge to crack down on London’s filthy air, Sadiq Khan launched a plan to tackle air pollution in the capital. This included bringing forward & increasing the size of the Ultra-Low Emission Zone, implementing Low Emission Bus Zones (the first will be in force in February), creating a T-charge which will apply to the most polluting vehicles and developing a plan for a national diesel scrappage scheme (which the MoL is pushing the government to deliver on).
14. Doubling spending on tackling air pollution
A record £875m will be spent on tackling air pollution over the next five years. Sadiq Khan has already confirmed where most of this money will be spent; £312m on cleaning up London’s 9,300 buses (to meet the ULEZ standard, as set out above), £65m on grants to replace older polluting cabs with zero-emission ones, £9m on tackling the worst pollution hotspots in London and £5m on introducing five new Low Emission Neighbourhoods.
15. Cleaning-up London’s buses
Further to the clean air measures already announced, Sadiq Khan has confirmed plans to stop buying any new pure single-decker diesel buses from 2018, and has already unveiled the word’s first hydrogen-powered double-decker bus. By 2020, all buses will meet the ULEZ standard, 300 zero-emission buses will be procured by 2020 and the number of completely electric bus routes will increase from one to three.
16. Protecting London’s Green Belt
The Green Belt is safe under Sadiq Khan, having already used his powers to block the construction of a football stadium and blocks of flats on Green Belt land in Chislehurst. He has also pledged to strengthen protection of green spaces in the upcoming London Plan. These actions have followed his commitment to increase tree coverage in the capital from 20% to 25% (amounting to 450,000 trees being planted by 2020).
17. Strengthening neighbourhood policing
After 6 years of crippling cuts to the London Metropolitan Police, Sadiq Khan announced that he would boost neighbourhood policing through ‘a second dedicated Police Constable in every London ward’. These officers will be ring-fenced, guaranteeing an extra 629 officers in local communities across the capital (260 by Christmas). In addition, through his Police and Crime Plan, the MoL will allow local areas control of their policing & crime priorities, and boost the number of female & BAME recruits to ensure the police force better reflects the communities they serve.
18. Supporting victims
As part of Sadiq Khan’s Police and Crime Plan for London, a victims commissioner to speak up for victims was announced. Restorative justice programmes where victims meet offenders to explain the impact of their crimes are to be rolled out as part of this strategy (backed up by a new £1.3m fund), and victims will soon be able to track the progress of their case online. In addition, £4m will be invested in tackling sexual abuse, and the first two Child Houses in the UK will be established in London to protect children who have been victims of sexual abuse.
19. An independent review into London’s terror preparedness
Sadiq Khan launced a major review early in his Mayoralty to look at how ready London’s emergency services are when it comes to responding to Paris or Brussels-style attack. The resulting report delivered a series of recommendations which will feed into the upcoming Police and Crime Plan. The MoL has already put plans in place to increase the number of armed police on patrol in the capital.
20. Finally preparing to sell Boris’ ‘redundant’ water cannon
Following the former London Mayor’s decision to buy three water cannon from the German federal police, £322,834 has been spent on purchase and maintenance. In addition, it has been made clear that it can’t be used, meaning the money has been completely wasted. Sadiq Khan has now confirmed that the water cannon will be sold, saving £175,000 over eight years in maintenance costs. The money raised will be invested in young people affected by gang crime.
21. Reviewing the London Fire Brigade
After £100m of cuts under Boris Johnson, Sadiq Khan ordered a review into the fire-fighting capacity of the London Fire Brigade to assess if it is fit to deal with crises like a terror attack despite reductions in the workforce, vehicles and staff. While the report concluded the LFB has coped well, it said current planned budget cuts could threaten coverage, and set out a serious of recommendations to protect the LFB under the next London Safety Plan. This is already being addressed in Khan’s first budget, which proposes investment to ‘dispatch a fire engine within 10 minutes to any incident anywhere in London 90 per cent of the time’.
22. Making work pay for Londoners
Sadiq Khan announced a 35p increase in the London living wage, and that 309 new employers had taken up the LLW. This means more than 1,000 London employers now pay the LLW, benefiting more than 60,000 low-paid workers. In addition, from next April, all 25,000 TfL bus drivers will receive a minimum starting salary of £23,000.
23. Investing in London’s entrepreneurs
To become, in the Mayor’s own words, ‘the most pro-business Mayor London has ever seen’, Sadiq Khan has already taken some important steps to boost London business, such as setting up a Business Advisory Board which will provide expert advice on boosting entreprenerialism in the capital), providing a sufficient supply of affordable work spaces for start-ups and small businesses through a new Workspace Providers Board and funding Londons’s business (such as £2.5m in start-ups since Brexit and £7m in tech skills for young Londoners).
24. Boosting London’s night-time economy
After months and years of dithering, Sadiq Khan has finally begun to open up the Night Tube, which is now running on 5 lines. It will eventually boost the London economy by £77m and create more than 2,000 jobs. Further, the first ever Night Czar has been appointed, who will work to boost London’s night economy. An early success has been the revival of the Fabric nightclub.
25. Work on the first Creative Enterprise Zone started
Plans are already underway to design and create London’s first Creative Enterprise Zone, which will provide affordable workspace for Londoners working in the creative industry. Sadiq Khan’s first budget commits £4m to the CEZ, as well as the planned London Borough of Culture. In addition, the proposal of creating a Creative Land Trust which will extend access to affordable properties to ‘Studiomasters’ is being looked at.
26. Pushing for pay equality in London
Sadiq Khan has already taken steps to ensure the gender pay gap is closed in London, by publishing the first ever Gender Pay Audit at City Hall, and publishing data on pay disparities in other GLA organisations (such as TfL). He has pledged to use this data to take action to close it, and push employers in the capital to do the same.
27. A more representative Mayoral Team & TfL Board
Proving his commitment to equality, Sadiq Khan has appointed a gender-balanced mayoral team, which also better reflects London’s diversity. In addition, it draws on talent and expertise (such as James Murray, Deputy Mayor for Housing, who worked on the housing brief at Islington Council for six years). The new TfL board is also much more representative, with 57% of the members women, 29% BAME & 13% with a disability (the makeup was previously 76%, 24% & 0% respectively). In addition, an additional member will be nominated by the TUC — the first time a TfL board member will represent the trade unions specifically.
28. Largest ever inquiry into foreign property ownership
Sadiq Khan is on the record when it comes to criticising the use of homes in the capital as gold bricks. He has now taken action by launching an ‘unprecedented’ inquiry into the role of overseas investors in the London housing market, and what action can be taken to address this problem (which largely manifests itself as bloated house prices).
29. Scrutinising the Garden Bridge
After City Hall spent £30m of public money on this project, Sadiq Khan blocked any further public money going into the Garden Bridge construction. Prior to this, he has also ensured that, if the project goes ahead, this structure would be a genuinely open space. However, as further questions over whether the scheme was ever actually value for money or not arose, the MoL launched an inquiry into the project as a whole to assess whether the Garden Bridge is worth building.
30. #LondonIsOpen
A major campaign launched in the wake of the EU Referendum result, #LondonIsOpen aims to show to the world that London is open, and remains ‘entrepreneurial, international and outward looking’, as well as ‘full of creativity and possibility’. The campaign has been promoted by people in business, education and the creative sector, and has been used to promote the culture and entrepreneurialism of the capital.
