Exclusive: Tory mayoral candidate Shaun Bailey calls for £104m ’emergency crime budget’
Tory mayoral candidate Shaun Bailey will attach an amendment to the mayor’s budget in an attempt to inject an extra £104m to the Metropolitan Police’s coffers.
The London Assembly will vote on Sadiq Khan’s £17bn 2020-21 mayoral budget at City Hall today.
The 25 assembly members can successfully add amendments to the budget, or over turn it completely, with a two-thirds majority vote.
Bailey told Morning Wire he will add an amendment that forces Khan spend an extra £104m on the Met, which he said would be enough to hire an extra 1500 police officers.
The mayoral hopeful proposes to do this by cutting spending on City Hall staff, the culture budget and by scrapping a privilege for Transport for London (TfL) employees that allows them to nominate one friend or family member to travel for free.
Scrapping the pass would save £44m alone.
Bailey’s amendment will also call for the mayor to axe promotional agency London and Partners – set up by Boris Johnson in 2011 – and transport watchdog London TravelWatch, which have a combined proposed budget of £14.1m in 2019-20.
“With crime at record levels in London, I urge Sadiq Khan to set party politics aside and back my emergency crime budget so we can fund more police officers for London,” he said.
“There are millions of pounds currently being spent on marketing, PR officers and union reps that could instead be spent on the police and tackling crime.”
Considering the current makeup of the London Assembly – 12 of the 25 members are a part of the Labour caucus – it would be a major shock if the amendment passed.
A source on the London Assembly said it wouldn’t go through as it slashes too many other budgets.
A London Labour spokesperson called Bailey’s amendment a “bizarre and innumerate proposal”.
They said: “It would make it harder to tackle the underlying causes of crime, build new council homes, clean up our toxic air or attract international investment to London, just when it is most needed because of Brexit – which Bailey supported.
“Shaun Bailey can’t be trusted on crime – he personally helped to implement huge Tory cuts to policing and youth services when he was Tory youth and crime adviser in Number 10.”