The London Assembly yesterday debated the 2009/2010 Greater London Authority budget which will determine how much money GLA bodies such as Transport for London can spend in the coming year.
Liberal Democrat Assembly leader Mike Tuffrey, said his group “believe that the Mayor’s draft budget contains too much short term thinking and not enough real vision for London. It simply fails to tackle the immediate challenges facing Londoners, or the long term challenges facing London’s environment.”
The Mayor, who is highlighting the ‘freezing’ of the GLA precept on council tax bills, has called on councils across London to freeze their portion of bills. Speaking yesterday he said: “I applaud the boroughs who are already helping to reduce the financial burden on their residents by lowering or freezing their council tax bills and I’d urge other councils who can to explore every possible avenue to do the same.”
Critics point out that although the GLA’s precept is not increasing in the 2009/20010 budget, fares in the capital have gone up.
Writing today for MayorWatch, Green Party AM Darren Johnson says: “Despite his promise of a zero increase to the council tax precept he has raised public transport fares above the rate of inflation, costing a typical working household an extra £180 a year.”
In December the Mayor produced a draft budget for public consultation.
The Assembly will debate the budget again in 2 weeks time when they are expected to approve it. The budget can only be amended by the Assembly if two thirds of AMs agree to do so.
Peter Hulme Cross says
“expected to approve it”!! They *will* approve it short of Divine intervention!
There are 11 Conservative AMs and Boris needs only 9 votes (one third of the 25 AMs) to get his budget approved. Perhaps that is why Labour and the Lib Dems have not gone to the trouble of producing an alternative budget.
At least during the Livingstone era, Ken needed the 2 Green votes to add to his 7 Labour votes to get the 9 votes required for his Budget to pass and there was always the possibility that someone, for whatever reason, might not be there to cast their vote. That is hardly likely this time.
During the review of the GLA Act in 2007 the Assembly proposed that the Mayor’s Budget should be subject to a simple majority vote of AMs but the Government rejected it. Had that been the situation now, Boris would have had to get the support of either the Lib Dems or the Greens to get the 13 votes necessary, leading to a very different debate and a very different Budget.