3 minute read
The Mayor Sadiq Khan
The London Mayor Explains What He Plans To Do Now London Has Voted Him Back In
Every night when I go to bed, I am always reflective on what could have gone better.
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Part of the difficulty of my job is that mayors across the country have far too little power compared to our global counterparts. For example, the Mayors of New York and Tokyo can spend 50 per cent and 70 per cent of tax raised in their cities compared with the seven percent I have as Mayor of London.
This pandemic should have been an opportunity for the government to see mayors across the country as its allies rather than adversaries, and use our exit from the European Union as an opportunity to distribute power from Whitehall to other parts of the country. ‘Levelling up’ shouldn’t mean levelling down London.
Regardless, I am determined to use every lever in my power to continue standing up for London and build a better city after the pandemic. As well as investing in policing and youth services so we can be tough on crime, and tough on the causes of crime and continuing to build record numbers of genuinely affordable homes, my focus is on jobs, jobs, jobs. I have a plan for supporting more than 170,000 well paid, future-proof jobs in the green economy as well as generating employment by supporting businesses, helping Londoners retrain and banging the drum for investment in our city from around the world.
While the running of schools doesn’t fall under the Mayor’s jurisdiction, I have been working hard to close the digital divide across schools in London, allocating £1.5million towards school children accessing the equipment they need to learn throughout the pandemic and beyond. I have also invested to help attract high-quality teachers to the city through Teach London and supported current teachers to become the leaders and headteachers of the future.
I am determined to fight hard for the funding which schools and colleges need to succeed. I also oppose moves to reduce education expenditure in London and intend to argue for more control in London when it comes to skills for 16-19 year-olds. I will also stand up for children with special educational needs (SEND) so that provision matches demand and I’ll lobby the Government to increase the overall funding for SEND Londoners. Further, I have always been clear that education has an important role to play in providing a more complete picture of our history and a better understanding of the historic and institutional reasons for racial inequality in Britain.
That is why I have campaigned for Black history to be part of the national curriculum and partnered with the Black curriculum to help refresh elements of the London curriculum, which serves hundreds of primary and secondary schools across the capital. Now that I’ve been re-elected, I will continue to lobby the government to make these changes to the national curriculum and give schools the tools and support they need to empower a new generation of Londoners to strive towards a fairer and more equitable city.
I also back making relationships education for primary pupils and relationships and sex education for secondary pupils compulsory to promote learning about positive, healthy relationships of all shapes and sizes and counter unhealthy attitudes and behaviours that can, if left unchecked, evolve into bigotry, discrimination and even violence.
I don’t ever think I’ve had a perfect day. Sometimes you make mistakes and these can be quite small. For instance, on reflection, it may have been a mistake to borrow a journalist’s racing bike to try and do a bunny hop on Hackney Marshes. But a big regret I have is trusting the Prime Minister last March when he said he would follow the science in tackling Covid-19. It quite quickly became clear that this was not the case and unfortunately led to many avoidable deaths.
My focus now is on ensuring that London is an even better city to live in after the pandemic than it was before. I’ll urgently tackle the increase in unemployment with a relentless focus on jobs, revive tourism in central London and support a safe recovery for our hospitality and creative sectors. I am pursuing a vision for a brighter future for London that will make our capital greener, fairer and safer for all, and I will always stand up for our city against the most anti-London government in living memory.
