Lower fares for Londoners, not lower taxes for bankers

By Ken Livingstone

Fares in London have become a stealth tax on the public, taking money out of the pockets of ordinary Londoners and – through that – out of the London economy.

That has to change. We can change it without damaging the provision of transport in the capital and without doing harm to the transport finances.

And we should, because the squeeze on people is getting out of hand. This is not a strongly growing economy with rising living standards that cushion the impact of fares rises. Nor is Tory London using higher than expected revenues to help Londoners with better services. Change is overdue.

An ineffective mayor has cost Londoners hundreds of millions of pounds in the last three years with higher than necessary fare rises.

Today I have set out the choice in the election. Londoners can carry on with higher fares for another four years as part of Boris Johnson’s 20 year plan for above inflation increases, or they can vote for a fairer alternative.

Boris Johnson will raise the fares in January again. If Londoners vote for me I will cut the fares by five per cent overall with an emergency fares package in the autumn of the same year. I will then hold fares at that level throughout 2013. After that, from 2014, fares will rise by no more than inflation.

That is a bold, fair and clear alternative that will help relieve the pressure people are under. Lower fares will make life better for millions.

Analysis of Boris Johnson’s transport finances shows that the higher than necessary fares Londoners have suffered for the last three years are entirely due to Boris Johnson’s failure to get a grip on fares in London.

Conservative Boris Johnson’s fare increases have meant the cost of a single bus fare using Oyster has risen by a staggering 56% since 2008, costing Londoners £260 a year more. A zone 1-6 Travelcard is up 22% costing Londoners £509 a year more.

My plan redirects some of the increasing operating surplus from Boris Johnson’s fares income and uses it to cut the cost of travel. Boris Johnson had an operating surplus in the financial year just ended of £728million. Each year he underestimates how much revenue he will get from fares, and as a result his surpluses rise. He is Zen-like in how utterly untroubled he is about burgeoning far rises. They are a straight transfer from the pockets and purses of Londoners.

My plan uses the most conservative assumptions about operating costs and surpluses to ensure the most prudent and robust basis for the fares cut.

Capital expenditure will be protected so that transport improvements are not touched – indeed, Boris Johnson is under-spending on this area even as he ratchets up fares.

The Mayor is solely responsible for setting fares and he therefore cannot assign responsibility for this ineffectiveness to anyone else.

Instead of seeking the lowest possible fares for Londoners, which is even more critical in a time of economic downturn such as at present, Boris Johnson has been obsessed with vanity projects such as his ‘new Routemaster’.

That’s part of the bigger picture of a Tory administration in City Hall that has the wrong priorities. Demanding lower taxes on a small number of the highest earners while driving up fares for the majority; moonlighting on a second job for the Telegraph paying £250,000 a year; meeting bankers more than the police. His wrong priorities reflect wrong Tory values.

A battle line is being drawn today. Either you put Londoners first or you carry on with the high fares policies of the Tory mayor. Fares will rise in January but with me they would fall in the autumn.

I will take my message of a fares cut to every corner of London. It will transform the terms of the debate about London’s future.

We will pound the streets and hit the phones to build a movement for fairer fares with our fares cut in 2012. I intend to galvanise Londoners around this clear policy that goes to the heart of the differences between our insurgent campaign and the failures of an incumbent mayor who has lost sight with what the mayoralty is for.

And we will build on it, piece by piece, so that we assemble a powerful set of fairer policies for a better London.

Boris Johnson wants lower taxes for bankers. I want lower fares for Londoners. From today, the choice could not be clearer.