The Jobs Guarantee would give 21 hours per week of work experience, paid at the London Living Wage for six months. This is one of the key measures in the London Assembly Labour Group’s amendment to the Mayor’s draft 2013-14 budget for London. The amendment and proposals focus on protecting frontline services, easing the cost of living crisis and helping young Londoners into work. 

The Mayor’s Draft Budget and the London Assembly Labour Group’s alternative proposals will be debated and voted on for a second and final time on Monday at City Hall.

In Westminster, the number of people under 24 out of work for more than a year is:

·         135 young people in January 2013

·         115 young people in January 2012

Labour London wide Assembly Member, Murad Qureshi AM said:”Boris may shrug his shoulders and say he is doing all he can, but he is signed up to the government’s reckless economic plans. All he has done is said the “˜rhetoric should be toned down’, but that cuts and austerity should continue. At a time when ordinary Londoners are struggling and the economy is flat-lining he must do more, there is an alternative.

"The Mayor needs to offer a solution for young Londoners who continue to be affected by this jobs crisis. I want to see him make a commitment to long-term adults to guarantee them a job if they’ve been out of work for more than 12 months.

“By offering a Jobs Guarantee the Mayor could help get 135 Londoners under 24 years into work in Westminster and 7,200 long-term unemployed young Londoners across the capital. ”

The key points of the Labour Group’s proposals are:

 Â·         A Jobs Guarantee for all 16-24 year olds who have been out of work for 1 year or more

·         Cut transport fares by 1% so they are in line with inflation

·         Re-allocate business rates to protect frontline police and fire services

·         Freeze the Mayor’s share of the Council Tax

·         Start the process of setting up a London-wide lettings agency

Ends

Notes

1.   Murad Qureshi is a London wide Assembly Member.

2.    The background note below provides more information on each proposal.

3.    Unemployment figures for January 2013 were released today and are available at www.nomisweb.co.uk

 For more information please contact Labour Group Press Officer Sophie Kimber on 020 7983 5639. Number not for publication.

Background

Jobs Guarantee

Working closely with appropriate employers the Jobs Guarantee would provide participants with 21 hours work per week paid at the London Living Wage. This proposal would see £35.6 million invested in 2013-14 to finance the scheme, including wages and employer’s NI contributions.

 The Jobs Guarantee will help prevent another “˜lost generation’ of unemployed young people, it will generate up to £27 million for HM Treasury through increased National Insurance payments, reducing the Job Seekers’ Allowance payments and through the VAT generated by the purchase of consumer goods by participants of the scheme.

 Protecting frontline Police services

Following central government’s 20% cut to the policing budget the frontline is now being hit. The Mayor has chosen not to allocate any more resources to the police, even though he has the ability to do so. He is planning to cut police numbers, cut front counters and decimate Safer Neighbourhood Teams. The budget amendment proposal is designed to cushion the impact of central government cuts.

The proposals would:

·         Recruit 1,159 PCSOs ““ both improving uniformed presence on our streets and creating a pool for future recruitment of police constables

·         Maintain the current level of front counter services across London

·         Recruit 250 new police officers for Safer Transport Teams

 Protecting frontline Fire services

Freezing the Mayoral precept will retain £9.4 million this year which will be used to keep all 12 fire stations and 18 fire appliances that are earmarked for the axe. This will maintain the current level of fire cover for London.

Reallocation of business rates

This proposal would allocate the recently-localised funds from Retained Business Rates in a way that protects the public services that Londoners depend upon and finances projects that help secure a sustainable economic, infrastructure, and environmental future for London.

 “˜Rogue’ landlords and lettings agencies

This proposal would invest in a GLA “˜know your rights’ website for tenants in collaboration with charities and think-tanks.  Secondly, proposes the financing of an action research project in to the establishment of a London-wide lettings agency. Thirdly, propose the commission of an extensive study into the feasibility of a London Living Rent.

” …..you just might have a point here, Murad “

The Mayor of London, Boris Johnson is clearly a literate man as his weekly Daily Telegraph column and array of books can testify. However, l am not sure about his numeracy skills given his recent ‘adjustment’ of the figures for the number of Metropolitan police officers. 

The latest debacle from Boris has come in the form of misleading police numbers. Having had his Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime, Stephen Greenhalgh, travel to every borough to sell his draft Police and Crime Plan at consultation meetings, it has transpired that the police figures the Mayor and his office were using were not the actual figures but been “adjusted”. This has called into question the accuracy of the information given to residents on the number of police officers that work and are forecast to work within their borough.

Boris and his team either know that these figures are wrong and are deliberately misleading the public, or they are not capable of understanding the police force they are in charge of. Both are equally worrying. If these figures are incorrect then the Mayor’s entire consultation with Londoners is fundamentally flawed.

It is vitally important that the information given to people is absolutely watertight and there is no confusion. It looks like the Mayor is not comparing like with like, and is making a cut in police officers for over half of London’s boroughs look like an increase.

Transparency is vital to building public trust which Boris will need if his plan to close 65 police stations and front counters comes to fruition. If the Mayor cannot explain where his figures have come from then what confidence can we, or Londoners, have about his future plans?

In search of clarification, the Labour Group has referred the matter to the UK Statistics Authority for their opinion as to whether the figures currently used by the Mayor for his London-wide consultation are accurate. Currently, police officer numbers are publically available on the Mayor’s own London Datastore. This is what we were referred to when we approached the Mayor for information on police numbers. Yet, these are not the figures being used by the Mayor.

In the meantime, Boris continues to pontificate to the public from his main source of income, his £250,000 a-year column in the Daily Telegraph, which he describes as “chicken feed”. Most recently he has been preaching about the injustices of the Government’s mansion tax proposals whilst making a grab for stamp duty in London to fund further housing developments in Greater London. All this when he could be doing a lot more with the money and power he already has.

For all of Boris’s talk about tightening our belt buckles in this time of austerity, he has blown London’s reserves. He balances the budget for the Greater London Authority by using money to cover running costs that was left to pay off debt. Indeed, the GLA has reserves of £244 million over the next three years, so the majority his proposed cuts would be passed on to the next Mayor of London. Boris is planning on spending the reserves which will leave his successor with a massive funding gap. But by that point, Boris will be making moves to be a tenant in Number 10 Downing Street.

On the basis of what l have seen recently, Boris needs to get back to school and focus on his math’s skills. Clearly an education at Eton is not all it cracked up to be.

This blog was published in Tribune edition of the 22nd of February – 7th of March 2013.

Hearing about some of the difficulties in setting up solar panels from Brixton Energy Co-op.

In Greater London we consume 13 per cent of the national energy supply whilst only contributing 2 per cent of its production. This is something we established during an investigation by the Environment Committee on Plugging the Energy Gap in London, released in December 2011. I had this foremost in my mind as l heard the news coverage yesterday of the outgoing CEO of OFGEM (the regulator of the energy sector in the UK) Alaistar Buchanan’s comments on the UK being “on the brink” of an energy crisis and that households should be prepared for a sharp rise in energy bills within two years as Britain comes “dangerously close to power shortages”.

More than a year ago, we warned a gap in energy supplies could impact on customers’ bills in London. So in the report we called on the government to support London’s efforts to generate more of its own heat and power. We press for district heating schemes, which can efficiently heat thousands of homes, to be eligible for existing subsidies, and local generation projects being set up in the capital to be part of back-up plans for electricity supply shortfalls.

Furthermore l was enthused by a visit to Brixton Energy Co-op on Monday, but was concerned by the unnecessary barriers stopping more local community owned schemes, like their solar panels schemes, being rolled out. I was at Mr Buchanan’s speech and was disappointed that important initiatives, such as Brixton Energy, that increase local energy supplies were very much vacant from his suggestions on how to plug the energy gap.

Murad Qureshi AM is today backing calls for the UK Statistics Authority’s opinion as to whether the figures currently being used by the Mayor for his London-wide consultation on the future of the Metropolitan Police are accurate. Currently, information on the number of police officers is made publicly available through the Mayor’s London Datastore but this information differs from that being used by the Mayor in his public consultation.

London Assembly Labour Policing spokesperson Joanne McCartney, has today written to the UK Statistics Authority seeking clarification.

The figures published by the Mayor on his website and separately in the Policing Consultation for Hounslow:

·         The Mayor says police strength was 472 in 2011

·         The Mayor’s London Datastore says police strength was 495 in 2011

·         The Mayor forecasts police strength will increase by 74 in 2015

·         The Mayor’s London Datastore forecasts police strength will increase by 51 in 2015

Labour Londonwide Assembly Member Murad Qureshi AM said:

“We know that 41 police officers have been lost since May 2010 in Hounslow and 2,208 police officers have been lost already across <city w:st=”on”><place w:st=”on”>London</place></city>. According to the Mayor we will be getting 74 by 2015 to replace some of those that have been lost. In fact it looks like we’ll get 51 more by 2015.

“It now appears Boris’s plans for the future of the Metropolitan Police are based on dodgy stats. Boris either knows these figures are wrong or is deliberately misleading the public.

“Residents have been consulted by Boris on the future of policing in Hounslow. It is vitally important that the information given to people is absolutely watertight and there is no confusion. We need to get to the bottom of what is going on as transparency is vital to building public trust in this whole process.

“If the Mayor cannot explain where his figures have come from then what confidence can Londoners, have in his future plans? I am backing calls for the UK Statistics Authority to investigate so we can get to the bottom of this.”

Ends

Notes

1.      Murad Qureshi is a Londonwide Assembly Member.

2.      A table explaining the difference in the Mayor’s claims can be found here:<shapetype coordsize=”21600,21600″ o:spt=”75″ o:preferrelative=”t” path=”m@4@5l@4@11@9@11@9@5xe” filled=”f” stroked=”f” id=”_x0000_t75″> <stroke joinstyle=”miter”></stroke><formulas><f eqn=”if lineDrawn pixelLineWidth 0″></f><f eqn=”sum @0 1 0″></f><f eqn=”sum 0 0 @1″></f><f eqn=”prod @2 1 2″></f><f eqn=”prod @3 21600 pixelWidth”></f><f eqn=”prod @3 21600 pixelHeight”></f><f eqn=”sum @0 0 1″></f><f eqn=”prod @6 1 2″></f><f eqn=”prod @7 21600 pixelWidth”></f><f eqn=”sum @8 21600 0″></f><f eqn=”prod @7 21600 pixelHeight”></f><f eqn=”sum @10 21600 0″></f></formulas><path o:extrusionok=”f” gradientshapeok=”t” o:connecttype=”rect”></path><lock v:ext=”edit” aspectratio=”t”></lock></shapetype><shape o:ole=”” type=”#_x0000_t75″ style=”WIDTH: 1in; HEIGHT: 56.25pt” id=”_x0000_i1025″><imagedata src=”file:///C:DOCUME~1NsalihLOCALS~1Tempmsohtml11clip_image001.wmz” o:title=””></imagedata></shape>

3.      Joanne McCartney’s letter to the UKSA can be found here:<shape o:ole=”” type=”#_x0000_t75″ style=”WIDTH: 1in; HEIGHT: 56.25pt” id=”_x0000_i1026″> <imagedata src=”file:///C:DOCUME~1NsalihLOCALS~1Tempmsohtml11clip_image003.wmz” o:title=””></imagedata></shape>

 Boris Johnson is currently overseeing one the biggest cuts programmes of London’s emergency services since their inception. The Metropolitan Police is set to lose 65 police stations and front counters. The London Fire Brigade is under pressure to close 12 fire stations, cut 18 fire engines and axe 520 fire fighters. Up to eight Accident and Emergency departments are at risk in the capital. And the London Ambulance Service is being cut by £53 million and losing 590 frontline staff.

Boris’s recent advice at Davos was to “junk the rhetoric of austerity and be confident” yet his policies in London paint an extremely bleak picture of cuts, cuts and more cuts. He thinks Londoners should obey the old adage of ‘keep calm and carry on’ but there is wide-ranging opposition to his planned closures which he can not ignore.

The Mayor may shrug his shoulders and say he is doing all he can, but the simple truth is that he isn’t. Where is the alternative that could benefit hard-working Londoners choosing between food, fuel or rent? Boris is actively embracing austerity. At a time when ordinary Londoners are struggling and the economy is flat-lining he must do more.

Boris has already grabbed £34 million this year from Londoner’s pockets with his unnecessary fare increase. On Boris’s watch we’ve seen bus fares rise by 50 per cent and weekly travel cards by 20 per cent. The Mayor has the power to bear down on fare rises and put money back in Londoners pockets but it has been above-inflation fare rise upon above-inflation fare rise every year since he was elected. His plan is for that pattern to continue for the next four years.

Top of Boris’s list at Davos was to build more housing but London’s affordable housing budget has been cut by nearly 70 per cent from 2011. Between April and September 2012 only 425 new affordable homes were started in the capital.

Boris’s arrogance knows no bounds. He’s most recent appointee, Andrew Gilligan, has been made his Cycling Tsar but has no experience of making transport or cycling policy. Gilligan joins Veronica Wadley, Gerard Lyons and Ray Lewis who have all been appointed by the Mayor in the last few months. So far that’s £280,000 of taxpayers money on jobs for his friends.

At a time when he is cutting the London Fire Brigade’s budget by £45 million, raising transport fares for the fifth year running as well as closing police stations across London, you might assume he would be practicing frugality. Unfortunately, London’s Mayor is more likely to boasting about how he earns more then the Prime Minister, to the Prime Minister. If Boris is genuine about fighting against the rhetoric and practice of austerity, he’ll need to do an awful lot more than call for a tax cut for millionaires and give jobs to his buddies.

 This City Hall Watch column was published in Tribune edition for 8-21st Feb

In the year of the snake, China also needs the year of clean air. At the beginning of the calendar year many parts of northern China experienced serious air pollution.

For example, in Beijing, according to the Air Quality Index, particulate matter of less than 2.5 micrometer in diameter (PM2.5) reached the most polluted level readings between 470 to 490.

This was a result of a combination of heavy fog and pollution enveloping large swathes of East and Central China for several days. It is a stark reminder of the high cost of rapid development.

This is happening at the same time as we witness one of the biggest migrations in human history as Chinese people increasingly move from their rural homes to urban areas. It is estimated another 300 million will migrate into Chinese cities and towns by 2030.

By then, its cities will be home to up to 70 per cent of the Chinese population. A billion humans already reside in the urban centres of China and one in eight humans worldwide inhabit Chinese cities, so, if the problem is not addressed now, then it’s set to get worse for many more people.

Having been a regular visitor to Chinese cities since the Beijing Olympics, most recently last December to Hong Kong for the Better Air Quality 2012 conference, it is interesting for me to note how cities are coping.

During the Olympics, Beijing took a number of measures including reducing traffic flows and moving industry out of the centre to reduce the affect of air pollution on the athletes. This is a legacy that has survived to the present day.

More recently, Hong Kong is dealing with a particular source of its air pollution from ships berthing in its docks as it proposes a Delta-wide scheme covering marine emissions. While on land, it is encouraging the adoption of electric cars in the city with plug points and suitable parking.

So what other mitigating measures are being taken?

On the national level, the Chinese government announced a new air pollution reduction plan, aimed at cutting gas emissions and pollutants. The aim is to cut the PM2.5 intensity by at least 5 per cent by 2015 in 13 major areas covering 117 cities.

The levels of other pollutants like PM10 and SO2 will be reduced by 10 per cent and NO2 by 7 per cent.

Improved public information appears to be another angle pursued as China has vowed to release hourly air pollution data for 74 of its largest cities in response to the increasing environmental concerns among its citizens.

Increasing numbers of Chinese people have complained about the problem of pollution and the murky grey skies that overshadow their cities.

Popular discontent is clearly a powerful driver of environment policies.

As for business, the Chinese private sector is helping to drive the global growth of environment certification, as almost 82,000 Chinese companies have qualified for environment standard ISO14001, of which more then 12,200 did so in the last year alone.

This is the highest growth rate in the world and can be attributed to Chinese companies realising that the standard can help them reduce their environmental impact, as well as maintain their competitive advantage, cut costs, enhance their reputation and win new business.

So China is finally addressing its pollution problem but is it going far enough?

Well, the year of the snake is meant to be one of steady progress and attention to detail. So my hope is that measures like the national action plan for reducing intensity of pollutants; better public information about the state of air quality; and Chinese businesses increasingly getting themselves environmentally certified will make for steady progress in improving air quality in China, and demonstrate that actual achievements can only result when policy makers look at the detail of what is actually happening.

So as we welcome in the year of the snake and as Chinese people return to their villages to celebrate and get some “respite” from the polluted air in the cities, 2013 also needs to be the year China tackles poor air quality.

The European Commission has made 2013 the Year of Air in Europe. Perhaps, something similar should also be done in China?

This article was published under Pollution Solution in the West End Extra pull-out for the Chinese New Year this week

The criticism follows an announcement from the Mayor that he intends to create the world’s first ultra Low Emission Zone in central <city w:st=”on”><place w:st=”on”>London</place></city>.  However, the announcement included a retraction on phase 5 of the LEZ which was announced two years previously.  

Labour Assembly Member Murad Qureshi said:

“Today, the Mayor announced his wish list and shifted the responsibility of tackling poor air quality on to local authorities and his successor in 2016. The plans were announced as part of his “2020” vision and therefore most of what he announced won’t take affect for another seven years.

“The Mayor claims that since 2008 emissions of PM10 and PM2.5 have been reduced by 15 per cent and emissions of NOx have been reduced by 20 per cent but these figures are computer modelled estimates of what comes out of tail pipes[1]. What matters is what we actually breathe and the fact is <city w:st=”on”>London</city> has the worst gaseous air pollution of any capital city in <place w:st=”on”>Europe</place>[2].

 “<city w:st=”on”>London</city> is among the very worst cities in <place w:st=”on”>Europe</place> for air pollution and as a result over 4000 lives are lost prematurely every year in this city. Not only has the Mayor fundamentally failed to address this problem during his five years in office, he has now kicked the issue into the long-grass so that someone else can deal with it".

Ends

Notes:

1. Murad Qureshi is a Londonwide Assembly Member and the Labour spoke person for Health and Environment for the London Assembly Labour Group.

2. An estimated 4,267 Londoners die prematurely each year because of long-term exposure to airborne pollution[3]. The proportion of deaths attributable to air pollution is higher in every <city w:st=”on”><place w:st=”on”>London</place></city> borough than the national average of 5.6%. Outside of the City of <city w:st=”on”>London</city>, the worst records are in <city w:st=”on”><place w:st=”on”>Westminster</place></city> and Kensington & Chelsea, where air pollution accounts for 8.3% of deaths. In Ealing, 7.2% of deaths are attributable to particulate air pollution, while in Hillingdon the equivalent figure is 6.5%[4].

For further information please contact Nikki Salih on 020 7983 4400. Number not for publication.

While we are right to be concerned about what’s happening to the NHS in London, spare a thought for the London Ambulance Service (LAS).

We are potentially talking about the closure of up to 8 A&E’s in Greater London, so this will inevitably increase movement across the region in order for ambulances to reach the nearest A&E.  Set against a backdrop of an increasing population in London with a  projected growth from 8.2 million to 9 million by 2020 and more critically an ageing one too, this does not bode well for improving patient care.  The assumption is that the LAS will pick up the slack by having to travel further when the service itself has to cope with a 19 per cent reduction in its budget as a result of the Nicholson Challenge and the consequent cut in 500 odd front line staff.  Moreover in a recent report by the Care Quality Commission (CQC), it was suggested that the LAS was not only understaffed but also under equipped.

So, at the lasr MQT, I asked the mayor what he was doing to help the LAS which will be the single remaining pan-London health service provider after April 2013.  I asked, for example what representations he’d made about the findings of the CQC which not only highlighted dangerous understaffing but also the lack of equipment to promote the care and welfare of patients.

The short answer is, not alot but you can watch the Mayor’s response for yourself above. So much for looking out for Londoners in their hour of need.

The key points of Labour’s proposals are:

·         A Jobs Guarantee for all 16-24 year olds who have been out of work for 1 year or more. In <city w:st=”on”><place w:st=”on”>Westminster</place></city> this would help 135 young people

·         Cut transport fares by 1% so they are in line with inflation. Londoners living in Zone one and travelling aound Zone One on a yearly travelcard would save £197.27

·         Re-allocate business rates to protect frontline police and fire services. In <city w:st=”on”>Westminster</city>, <city w:st=”on”><place w:st=”on”>Westminster</place></city> fire station is earmarked for closure, this would be kept open and police front counter provision will be maintained.

·         Freeze the Mayor’s share of the Council Tax which is currently only saving households 7 pence per week

·         Start the process of setting up a London-wide lettings agency

Local Labour <place w:st=”on”><city w:st=”on”>London</city></place> Assembly Member Murad Qureshi Am said:

 “As the economy stumbles and splutters towards a triple-dip recession the Mayor needs to help the economy and help ordinary Londoners. Cutting fares by one per cent will save residents in <city w:st=”on”><place w:st=”on”>Westminster</place></city> £197.27 on their annual travelcard.

“Our Jobs Guarantee for 16-24 year olds out of work for over a year will put 135 young people in <city w:st=”on”>Westminster</city> into work, and benefit 7,500 long-term unemployed young Londoners across <city w:st=”on”><place w:st=”on”>London</place></city>.

“Boris has cut his share of the council tax by less than 10 pence a week per household, but at the same time has whacked up fares above inflation for the fifth year running. He must be stupid to think Londoners won’t notice this.”

Ends

Notes

1.      Murad Qureshi is a Labour Londonwide Assembly Member.

As more people struggle to heat their homes whilst the energy companies continue to increase their profits, the Labour Group on the London Assembly have today presented an alternative.

London Assembly Labour’s alternative budget for London is an effort to make Mayor of London Boris Johnson invest in meaningful projects that will help struggling Londoners. Boris’s record as Mayor is pathetic; he has failed to deliver anything but vanity projects and has overseen cuts to London’s frontline emergency services.

With fuel bills increasing by up to 11 per cent this year, fuel poverty is rising in London. National Energy Action has calculated that, for every 1 per cent increase in energy prices, 40,000 households are pushed into fuel poverty nationally.  The most recent round of price hikes will have pushed an estimated additional 266,000 into fuel poverty.

With this in mind, London Assembly Labour proposes to action a research project in to the establishment of community energy cooperatives in London. The study would draw on the experiences of successful energy cooperatives, such as Brixton Energy, to establish what would be required to introduce a borough-wide energy cooperative, culminating in a ward-level pilot study.

We would commit £500,000 towards establishing community energy cooperatives in London. This is an essential investment. Energy prices are an increasing worry for families who are finding the cost of living spiralling out of control. Families are choosing between food and fuel and this can be seen by the surge in the number of people visiting food banks as they struggle to buy the basic provisions to survive.

It is critical that energy becomes more affordable. Energy cooperatives enable the members to become invested in the energy they produce and use. Where the community owns a stake of the energy that is being generated, the benefits are spread across the membership, helping to keep more of the money the energy generates in the local community. Further, co-operative ownership of the energy supply also democratises the process of energy consumption and production, while reducing the opaqueness surrounding pricing under a market dominated by a small number of companies.

Boris talks a good game and is adept at making speeches laying the blame for London’s problems at David Cameron’s door, but he has singularly failed to use the powers and resources at his command to improve life for ordinary Londoners. Our budget alternative puts forward tangible suggestions that could help Londoners now and build a future not reliant on the “˜big six’ energy companies.

We have a simple message for Boris, he is the Mayor of London, a great city of over 8 million people with drive and determination. He should be standing up for Londoners and helping them during these difficult times.

Murad Qureshi is a Labour Londonwide Assembly Member and spokesperson for the Labour Group on environmental and health issues.

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