Ahead of this autumn’s party conferences, BBC London’s political editor Karl Mercer is sitting down with leaders, or deputy leaders, for four minutes each to discuss some of the key issues facing the capital and what their party might do to tackle some of them.
Here, he interviews Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer, leader of the Labour Party.
KM: “I think many in London would say actually Labour has become an anti-London party. All the money is going to places in the North where you think you need to shore up against Reform and not coming to the capital, which has its own desperate needs?”
KS: “No, not at all. Today, we’re announcing nine places in London that are going to get our Pride in Place funding. That is really important. That’s a 10-year project investment of money, and what goes with it is local control to those in the places where the money is going.”
KM: “Well, I’m glad you brought it up, because you say London’s getting nine places. The funding in London over the next 10 years is £50m. Compare that to the North West, the funding there is £750m.”
KS: “Well the funding in London obviously comes alongside the funding that we put in on transport, on housing, where we work very closely with the mayor, and therefore actually the working relationship between the government and the mayor is first class.
“We work together, we deliver together and we’re all focused on delivering for London. I’m really pleased that we can add to that the nine places for the Pride in Place money which is a 10-year project. It’s very, very important.”
KM: “You haven’t delivered any money for the DLR extension to Thamesmead, which would unlock much needed housing. You haven’t delivered any money for the Bakerloo line extension to Lewisham, which would unlock much needed housing. You haven’t delivered the West London Orbital money, all of which the mayor said would have been crucial in the spending review.”
KS: “Well, we have delivered a lot of money into transport, a lot of money into housing. We’re working very closely with the mayor, but as you will understand, in the financial situation we find ourselves in as a country, we have to take carefully balanced decisions.
“But I continue to work very closely with the mayor. We’re discussing between our offices the whole time, we’re both focused on how can we best deliver for Londoners.”
KM: “And in terms of where we go with fair funding of local authorities in London, they say that they are facing a crisis as never before in funding. The fair funding review that you are going through at the moment is being labelled by them as an unfair funding one because London is the area of the whole country that loses out most.”
KS: “Well we’re going through the review and obviously we’re led by the review in relation to these matters and we are working with the mayor and others to make sure that we can give all the support we can to the projects that matter in London.
“That matters, it’s our capital city, we’re very proud of London, that’s why I’m very proud today to put more money into London, alongside the transport and housing, and we’ll continue to do that.”
KM: “What do you think Londoners will make of the fact that taxpayers are paying £600 to ferry asylum seekers to appointments?”
KS: “Well, very concerned and it’s very important that we’re clear that we need to ensure that asylum seekers have their claims processed as quickly as possible, and those that have no right to be here should be removed from the country.”
KM: “Is it right that £600 is being paid to ferry people?”
KS: “No it’s not and we absolutely put a stop to that. It’s not right, I’ll be very clear about that.
“Equally, I want to see our asylum hotels closed down. I want to see them emptied as quickly as possible.
“We inherited tens of thousands of cases which hadn’t been processed by the last government. We’re working through those at pace.
“We’re looking at whatever we can do to bring forward the date for getting people out of hotels.
“I completely understand the frustration that Londoners and others have about this issue. We have returned 35,000 people under this government, who have got no right to be here. That’s the highest number for the best part of 10 years. So we are going at this at pace and I’m determined to go just as quickly as we can.”
