Sir Sadiq Khan has defended his latest planned council tax increase after facing questions from City Hall Conservatives about the sharp rise bill-payers have seen over the course of his mayoralty.
The Labour mayor blamed the last Tory Government’s austerity programme and said he had been forced to attempt to plug the financial gap, adding that “one budget is not going to undo 14 years of cuts”.
Sir Sadiq is preparing to increase his portion of council tax by four per cent, which will add £18.98 to a benchmark band D annual bill, taking the mayor’s share from £471.40 to £490.38.
It is the mayor’s lowest increase for five years - but it still means his portion of council tax will be more than £200 higher than the annual band D precept of £276 that he inherited in 2016 from his Conservative predecessor, Boris Johnson.
The bulk of the increase - £14 – will go directly to the Metropolitan Police to help to keep 1,300 neighbourhood officers funded by City Hall on patrol and tackle violent crime and robbery. The remaining £4.98 will go to the London Fire Brigade.
At a London Assembly meeting on Thursday however, the mayor was asked by Tory assembly member Alessandro Georgiou: “What alternative funding sources did you explore before deciding to increase your precept, such as seeking additional central Government funding or re-allocating funds from other parts of the budget?”
Mr Georgiou added that the mayoral council tax precept had increased by more than 75 per cent since Sir Sadiq took office nine years ago, and he asked if the mayor will “speak to your mates in this commie new Government and [ask] whether they’ll give you money, as you promised they would”.
Sir Sadiq said there were two reasons for his precept going up. The first, he said, was to support London’s police service, as it had “lost £1.1bn from their budget from central Government” over 14 years of Conservative rule, which amounted to a third of their “core funding” lost. He also blamed Mr Johnson for failing to increase council tax, which had led to the Met losing a further £350m from their budget.
“That’s one of the reasons why police office numbers went down to 29,000, one of the reasons why we’ve had fewer PCSOs, one of the reasons why we have police stations closed off,” the mayor said.
“So what I’ve done is take the decision that I want to support the police, and be pro-police, so I’ve increased the police precept by £14 and every penny of that money raised goes to the police and crime prevention, which is about £58m. If I took his [Mr Georgiou’s] advice, and didn’t raise that, that means £58m further cuts that have got to be found.”
The second reason Sir Sadiq gave for increasing his council tax was to support the Fire Brigade. He said: “The previous mayor closed down fire stations, sold off fire engines, reduced fire staff, the leadership was hollowed out, big problems in the Fire Brigade, so what I’ve done-”
Mr Georgiou cut the mayor off, saying that he was failing to address his own record by blaming the last Government, and was ignoring the fact that Labour are now in Government.
“Your manifesto was filled with drivel that if we had a Labour Government and a Labour mayor, things would be better, [and] you wouldn’t need to do the things that you’re doing now,” the assembly member said. “So were you lying in your manifesto, or are you misleading us now?”
Sir Sadiq replied that between 2010 and July 2024, the Met Police received additional funding, in cumulative terms, of only £44m - whereas in the seven months since Labour won the general election, the Met had received £208m.
Mr Georgiou’s party colleague, Susan Hall, later pointed out that almost £45m of that £208m increase would go directly back into the Government’s coffers, due to Labour’s increase in employers' national insurance contributions.
The mayor nonetheless said that in the space of seven months, the Labour Government “have given the Met Police Service four and half times more in funding than his [Mr Georgiou’s] mates did in 14 years”.
Mr Georgiou then asked: “Why, if it’s so wonderful, are you putting your hands deeper into Londoners’ pockets? If you’ve received all of the money that you’ve asked for, why are you still doing it?”
The mayor responded: “One budget is not going to undo 14 years of cuts. What we need is to make sure that we continue to invest in our police. Police officer numbers have been going down, police staff numbers have been going down, police stations have been closing, youth clubs have been closing, youth workers have lost their jobs.
“What we’re doing is investing in young people, youth clubs and youth workers and investing in the police and it’s quite clear that with the Conservatives on the Assembly, they want to cut the police budget by £58m next year.”
Mr Georgiou closed the exchange by saying, in a message to the capital’s electorate: “If you voted for this man, you voted to be poorer as a Londoner.”
The Assembly will formally vote on whether to approve Sir Sadiq’s budget at a meeting next month.
