Susan Hall’s campaign pledges are accused of having a huge ‘black hole’ (Picture: Getty)
The Conservative candidate hoping to unseat Sadiq Khan as London mayor has a £515million black hole in her manifesto plans, Labour claims.
Susan Hall is set to unveil her full manifesto imminently as she goes up against the Labour incumbent to become mayor of England’s capital city.
It’s been claimed that her plans, accused of coming ‘straight from the Liz Truss playbook – have a huge ‘black hole’ of more than £500million.
But the Conservatives say Susan’s plans are fully costed and call Labour’s accusations ‘desperate’.
Jonathan Ashworth MP, Shadow Paymaster General, said: ‘There has never been a starker choice at a London Mayoral election – between Sadiq’s costed plans to build a fairer, safer and greener London for everyone, or the Tory candidate’s unfunded commitments.
‘Susan Hall’s pledges are straight from the Liz Truss playbook – reckless, irresponsible and uncosted.
Susan Hall has pledged to get rid of the outer London ULEZ ‘on day one’ if she is elected (Picture: PA)
Sadiq Khan is hoping to be re-elected as mayor for London (Picture: Yui Mok/PA Wire)
‘With a black hole of more than £500million in her spending plans, it will be Londoners who would pay the price, with huge cuts to their services or hikes in council tax and transport fares.
‘Londoners can’t afford this latest version of Trussonomics to be implemented in the capital.
‘Susan Hall’s proposals are the most irresponsible set of plans from any major party candidate in the history of the mayoralty.’
The figures behind Susan Hall’s ‘budget black hole’
Labour claims that Susan Hall’s budget shortfall is more than half a billion pounds, at £515,875,000, because her commitments are allegedly based on income which doesn’t exist.
The party say that if her pledges were paid for by increasing council tax, it would add nearly £200 to the average Band D bill.
They also claim her plans would lead to cuts to London’s services, or increases in TfL fares.
This is the list of spending commitments Susan Hall has made, which would cost £598,875,000 and Labour claims are unfunded:
£180,000,000 – Scrap outer London ULEZ on day one
£40,000,000 – Restore the 60+ freedom pass for peak hours throughout the whole week
£50,000,000 – fund for councils to address air pollution hotspots.
£1,500,000 – Get rid of cycle lanes such as Park Lane.
£9,000,000 – Reverse all TfL roads 20MPH speed limits
£1,000,000 – Order a Casey-style culture review of TfL
£200,000,000 – New investment in the Met Police ‘to tackle the scourge of knives, modernise the police to use the latest artificial intelligence and facial recognition technology, and work to dismantle the gangs and organised crime networks that ruin so many lives’.
£110,000,000 – Return the Met police to a borough-based structure and reintroduce borough commanders.
£375,000 – give all frontline police officers knife wands
£7,000,000 – Every school in London to be given a knife arch
The Conservatives have outlined how they would fund these changes – but Labour has criticised their sums here too.
Labour claims these plans would save about £83million per year, leaving a shortfall of nearly £516million.
A spokesperson for Susan Hall’s mayoral campaign said: ‘This is desperate stuff from Sadiq Khan’s campaign.
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‘Susan’s commitments are fully costed and accounted for, much of which will be covered by cutting the ridiculous amount of waste in City Hall and TfL.
‘By contrast, Sadiq Khan’s manifesto has around a billion pounds worth of pledges, with no explanation at all as to how he is going to pay for them, and which could only be paid for by cutting police funding and bringing in pay-per-mile.’
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