Boris’s budget to lose London households £200


by Sunny Hundal    
9:30 am - February 10th 2011

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London Assembly members will today claim that London Mayor Boris Johnson’s budget will lose every household in London the equivalent of £200.

The budget proposes:

Cutting funding to London by over half a billion pounds – equivalent of £200 per household

Cutting around 1,000 police and 890 police community support officers

Cutting jobs, skills and economic funding by 50%

Labour London Assembly members will today (at 10am) propose an alternative to Mayor Boris Johnson’s £13.6 billion budget, which seeks to lessen the cut in police numbers and reverses some of Boris Johnson’s fare rises.

The government grant to the Metropolitan Police Authority, London Fire and Emergency Planning Authority, Greater London Authority, Transport for London and London Development Agency is being cut £618 million this year alone.

This cut comes on top of the cuts Mayor Boris Johnson has been making since he was elected in 2008, including:

* £1.7bn cut to London’s buses
* Cut the Thames gateway bridge (and with it £200m of funding)
* Cuts to police numbers
* Scrapped London’s affordable childcare programme, which helped thousands of parents into work
* Cut 450 tube ticket office jobs
* £28m from plans to make underground stations step-free
* Ended free entry for all school children to London Zoo and Wetlands Centre

The meeting today is the first part of a two-stage budget setting process. The Assembly will consider the Mayor’s final budget at its meeting on 23 February; the final budget may be amended by a two-thirds majority.

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About the author
Sunny Hundal is editor of LC. Also: on Twitter, at Pickled Politics and Guardian CIF.
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Reader comments


1. IanVisits

Not really, if the local government spends on average £200 per household less, then on average that is £200 per household more in cash in their bank accounts.

Unless you are funding day-to-day spending by borrowing, which is a silly idea, then it is a zero-sum game.

2. Tim Worstall

Quite. The money that would be spent must come from somewhere: so if it isn’t spent it doesn’t come from somewhere.

So not spending £200 per household must mean that £200 per household isn’t being taken in taxes at some point.

Certainly possible to argue that things would be better if the tax were taken and then spent: but to argue that not taking the money in the first place thus costs households money is nonsensical.

3. Andreas Moser

So I’ll have to pay 200 £ less in taxes this year?
Great!

4. Roger Mexico

I’m sorry but, even by Lib Con standards, the headline is misleading. And you could at least tell us what Boris is doing about cut in government grant: mitigating it, adding further cuts, passing it all on.

the final budget may be amended by a two-thirds majority. So with the Tories holding 11 seats out of 25 (who thought up that super-majority I wonder), it’s hardly likely.

5. Sunny Hundal

Not really, if the local government spends on average £200 per household less, then on average that is £200 per household more in cash in their bank accounts.

Actually – no. That money, in the short term is not coming out of taxation but borrowing.

And in the longer term, if the economy recovers then its easier to pay that money back than cutting spending massively now, which further depresses the economy.

Simple really.

6. Fungus

@5

Right, lets undertate yet more public borrowing. Fantastic. As you say all borrowing needs to be repaid eventually (unless the Government defaults).

So future taxpayers will pay for the services we recieve. Very fair.


Reactions: Twitter, blogs
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