Long-term funding deal must come without too many strings attached

Until we see the details of central government’s (eventual) funding offer to Transport for London, it is dangerous to be too cheered by the arrival of the long-awaited and absurdly delayed proposal.

For two years, the Mayor and TfL’s commissioner Andy Byford have been making a clear case for a settlement that helps secure London’s economy and global status which, in turn, provides untold benefits to the rest of the United Kingdom.

Yet on each and every occasion so far, the response from Whitehall has been to first ignore, then punish. The scale of the savings programmes which TfL have been forced to embark on have already squeezed the service to the bone – demands which it is impossible not to see as at least in part based on vindictiveness. They are so harsh that Moody’s even downgraded TfL’s bond rating, suggesting that further cost savings would be “challenging, especially in a high-inflation environment.”

In short, the deal that the Mayor and TfL should accept is one that comes with the fewest strings attached. That would be good for London, self-evidently, but it would also be good for central government.

As Grant Shapps sits around the cabinet table, he and the other temporary post-holders should be discussing the economy as the first, second and third item on the agenda. It is madness that as they (presumably) look for ways of boosting the UK’s anaemic economic growth, he is at the same time at war with the leadership of one of the world’s precious few truly global cities. What’s good for London is good for the rest of the country.

Growth here is good for growth everywhere else. It is a uniquely British viewpoint that having one of the world’s economic powerhouses within our own borders is somehow a bad thing.

We will in time see the details of the funding proposal – perhaps only when it is accepted, or otherwise. But further savings would be hard to justify – or indeed to deliver.