Tessa Jowell launches London Mayor bid with Homes for Londoners pledge

Tessa Jowell today officially launched her bid to be Labour candidate for Mayor of London. At a rally in a community hall in Brixton, Jowell told supporters that the choice must be made on the basis of who can win in 2016, who has a plan, and who can deliver.

Jowell also focussed on the issue of housing, promising to introduce a TfL style organisation to oversee housebuilding, called Homes for Londoners. “It’s not enough for the Mayor to exhort others to build homes,” she said. “We’ve tried that – it hasn’t worked.”

“The next Mayor needs to take the lead, building thousands of homes that Londoners can afford on the vast swathes of land that the Mayor owns. ”

Homes for Londoners would be led by a housing commissioner, and would have the power to both build homes and plan development – ensuring City Hall builds housing on public sector land for the first time since the dissolution of the GLC in 1986. Using the 5,700 acres of land owned by TfL, Jowell aims to build an extra 2,000 affordable homes a year in London.

On the choice during the selection, Jowell said:

“So the question for this selection is clear: Who can deliver the change that London needs? Who can win, who has a plan, who can deliver?

“Well let me tell you – we can win, all of us, together, not by talking to ourselves but by working with Londoners. 

“I’ve got a plan. Not just the same old empty boasts we always hear at election time – people are switching off and who can blame them.

“And I’ll tell you this – I will deliver. I will see it through, that’s what I’ve always done.

“I delivered Sure Start, helping hundreds thousands of young Londoners get a better start in life and in 2002 when the Prime Minister told me we couldn’t bring the Olympics to London I won him round. I won the cabinet round, and then the Olympic team  got on planes and we won the world round too.

“That’s fighting for London, that’s delivering for London.

“But I didn’t do any of it on my own – you never do. You get things done by working with people, winning them round, sharing your goals.”