I set out at length here why I think London has to “move away from ‘grants’ from central Government for essential services such as fire and police.”
“To continue to grow and prosper, London needs a long-term and binding funding settlement which gives us the freedom to drive forward ambitious plans without first having to ask remote, unaccountable Ministers for their blessing.”
I also highlighted the extra VAT collected during the Olympics as a source of money London could have benefited from but which will instead be scooped up by central Government, so I’m pleased the Commission Boris announced today will focus on how London can keep a share of any extra tax receipts.
This addresses the oft-made criticism that more funding for London would come at the expense of other, poorer areas.
The tragedy is that by rejecting their own Mayors in May, those other areas have most likely condemned themselves to decades of slower economic growth than cities with champions will enjoy.
Businesses will flock to those areas with a strong leader who has the personal mandate to deliver the support and infrastructure needed to promote and sustain growth.
By listening to the vested interests of the councils and parties which have repeatedly failed them, the Mayoral refuseniks have ensured they’ll have to sit and watch as the investment goes elsewhere.
I hope they’ll have an opportunity to correct that mistake soon.
Returning to home, the appointment of the LSE’s Tony Travers as head of his Commission suggests Boris is actually serious about this cause.
Travers is rightly widely respected, recommendations with his name on them will be hard to dismiss or ignore.
Boris’s critics should prepare themselves for the possibility that he might yet leave London better off then he found it.
Damian Hockney says
July 19, 2012 at 11:14 amMore genuine autonomy is a nice idea but is flying in the face of the centralising demands of the EU which makes most of the laws for the EU now and which is flexing its muscles over the few remaining areas where nations have some power – taxation and finance being a key area. Hence (for example) the Sicily government with its traditionally greater autonomy and the Spanish regions with their newly won powers are all currently seeing their powers suppressed and removed by the centre via the national governments. And it is in the area of finance where government at its higher level is specifically determined to remove their autonomy and make then subject to the centre. Greater control of finance (and above all what you can do, or not do, with it) is the key to independence and the new Commission must consider the whole matter of devolved government and how it operates if it is not just to return a superficial skate over matters and an ideal world ‘why oh why?’ synopsis.
There is no point making suggestions about VAT and greater control without considering the actual nature of governance now and how possible the suggestions are. One of the reasons why electorates are rejecting locally elected Mayors is that they are beginning to perceive them as an expensive talking shop, relatively powerless, allowing local elites more paid employment. Businesses will thrive in places where there is less government and it gets out of the way. Not where ever more layers of government make ever greater demands upon the business like latter day robber barons.
Damian Hockney says
July 19, 2012 at 11:25 amPS If I were a taxpayer in Birmingham, I would be arguing that surely those extra VAT receipts at the Olympics (less in fact than is being fondly imagined) should not just go the London taxpayer/City Hall without being set off by national government with the massive central government subsidy for the Games, er, payable by all taxpayers over the past five years. Otherwise, surely, that would be like being able as a business to claim back the VAT you have spent without accounting for the VAT you have received!
Tony Woolf says
July 20, 2012 at 12:01 amWhy stop there? Let Westminster and Kensington keep all the tax revenue raised in those local authority areas.