London Assembly Member, Murad Qureshi, has criticised the Mayor’s latest move to win over the green lobby by offering a £4 million fund supposed to kick-start innovative energy efficiency measures. 

Murad said: "Last year the Mayor’s London Development Agency underspent by £12.9 million on its climate change programmes yet now he puts up less than a third of that amount and expects to sort out the economy and solve climate change – a pretty tall order.

"Boris has repeatedly said he doesn’t want to back winners as he wants the market to decide them, and yet by setting up this fund he’s acknowledging it’s both necessary and legitimate to give certain projects a helping hand to protect the environment."

Murad continued: "The LDA should be talking with other parts of the Mayor’s group to fund these projects.  When you consider that the Mayor’s Waste Board – that he chairs – has a budget of £84 million for just this sort of thing and the LDA has a budget of nearly half a billion, you can see just what a paltry gesture this is."