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Boris says “I will be the next Mayor”
We recently caught up with Boris Johnson and his Director of Business Affairs, Patrick Frederick, at his campaign headquarters.
We asked Boris to comment on the widely held view within the ethnic communities that the Labour party is more likely to champion their cause and promote their interests rather than the Conservative party. As far as the Indian community is concerned they make up the largest ethnic group in London and yet they have seen hardly any meaningful representation at senior management or board level within the current Greater London Authority (GLA) group. They are also well aware of the fact that a prospective Mayor will need to get the support of the large ethnic vote in order to get elected. Against this background our communities are keen to understand Boris’s commitment to ensure that a future Conservative administration would be inclusive and reflect the ethnic diversity of London.
Boris explained that he had wide support from all communities. He felt that Londoners aspirations are not being met and are being let down by the current Mayor who appears increasing out of touch with what Londoners want. The Mayor has surrounded himself with advisors who are a legacy of the past and no longer serve the best interest of Londoners. “I will be the next Mayor and I will maximise the potential of London as a world class city for the benefit of all Londoners and make it a better place to live and work”.
In relation to getting fairer representation at all levels of the GLA, Boris said “I am fully committed to being inclusive. I will include all the talents of London and build on their aspirations. My administration and the GLA group will reflect the diversity of London. I am of mixed origin myself and we have people of Indian and African Caribbean origin in our campaign team. In regards to this I would welcome participation from the Indian community to join the transition administration and play a full part in the future GLA.” Following further discussions, Dilip Joshi from HCUK agreed to source CV’s of highly qualified individuals with relevant qualifications and experience who would be willing to work with his team and help any future administration.
Turning to crime and policing, we raised the issue that the majority of the Asian businesses in London are retail businesses and they face a lot of violence and intimidation from gangs and thugs. The police response has been wholly inadequate. The perception within the community is that because Asians are peaceful and do not make a fuss, the police think that it is acceptable to ignore their plight and leave them defenceless. We asked Boris what he would do to deal with this type of antisocial behaviour. His response was “We are committed to dealing effectively with anti social behaviour robustly and I will ensure that the police get the powers they need to deal with this type of incidence”
On the impact that congestion charging is having on business, Boris said “ More broadly I believe that the congestion charge needs reform, and that the 2009 contract changeover provides the perfect opportunity to look at how to make the scheme fairer and more affordable for everyone and businesses”.
“Ken Livingstone’s plans to charge the drivers of larger vehicles £25 a day to enter
the congestion charging zone will have a significant impact on London’s businesses.
Any small business with a van will be forced to pay up to £6,000 a year for the privilege
of working in the centre of the capital. £6,000 can be the difference between a small
business staying afloat and going under. We therefore promise to scrap the £25 charge
before its planned introduction in October. We will also make it easier for businesses
to pay the Congestion Charge and avoid fines by introducing an account-
Furthermore, “We are committed to taking businesses’ views seriously and to approaching
every consultation with an open mind. Consultations will be used to help shape decisions,
not simply to conform to legal requirements. As a start we will re-
A question we are often asked is how can London businesses from the ethnic communities benefit form the 2012 Olympic Games, most have little idea how to go about this and there is a feeling that they will not be able to benefit. We asked Boris what he would do to ensure that London’s ethnic business get a fair slice of the contracts?
“Small businesses in London are the least likely in the country to have contracts with their local government authorities. The Mayor should take the lead in redressing this by making it easier for small business to access public sector contracts. The GLA Group procurement contracts are worth around £5 billion annually and the official total budget for the Olympics stands at £9.3 billion – though recent reports suggest that the real figure could spiral to £20 billion. We need to make sure that all of London’s businesses can benefit from this spending by making it easier for SMEs to access GLA group and Olympic contracts.
We believe that the current procurement processes may disadvantage many SMEs through
the sheer weight of bureaucratic requirements. The FSB have called for the GLA to
avoid “the unnecessary and unjustified bundling of contract requirements to preclude
small business participation”. We will work with businesses to streamline the process,
for example by making the pre-
We will also investigate introducing a target for the GLA and its functional bodies to procure a given proportion of goods and services from local and small businesses”.
Moving on to the performance of the London Development Agency (LDA), Transport for
London (Tfl) and the remainder of the GLA group we said that many of our community
have had dealings with these organisations and we receive a large number of complaints.
These complaints demonstrate the need to improve the performance of the whole GLA
group. This will require a strong commitment to critically reviewing the management
and processes within these organisations and make the necessary changes quickly so
that Londoners can benefit. Boris’s response was “A Mayor exists to solve these
problems, but not enough has been done. While we now have greater spending on transport,
the money is not always invested wisely. For every pound we spend on fares, too
much is spent on running costs and advertising -
Turning to the LDA, Boris said that “the Mayor must also listen to businesses’ views
when it comes to the London Development Agency (LDA). In the wake of recent controversy
we are committed to conducting a thorough review of all of the LDA’s expenditure.
We need to combine this review with a business-
When we asked Boris how he would improve the performance of the LDA so far as small businesses were concerned. He said that “we will look to restructure the LDA’s business support services to make them more accessible and relevant to London’s businesses. In the last review of their business support services, the LDA reported that businesses are confused by the services on offer and don’t know where to go to get good advice and information”. Boris made the point that the review reported that many businesses believe the LDA’s support would be “time consuming to access or not suited to their organisation”. It concluded that this was “caused in part by duplication, fragmentation and overlapping of service offers and providers”. Twenty months on, business organisations are still reporting confusion over ways to access business advice and services.
To end this confusion Boris said that he will work closely with London’s businesses to restructure the LDA’s business support services. The fundamental aim of this reorganisation will be to create a service that:
1. Encourages and helps adult Londoners to start their own businesses
2. Introduces young Londoners to the opportunities of entrepreneurialism
3. Helps fledging businesses grow
4. Ensures that London remains attractive to global businesses and investment
Borris added that “we would also like to realise the enormous entrepreneurial potential
among BAME communities and women. Only 13% of the UK’s small businesses are led by
women. This compares poorly to the US, where 30% of SMEs are led by women. If we
could match the American rate of female entrepreneurship in Britain there would be
700,000 more businesses in the UK. We are committed to working with local communities
and business groups to increase enterprise participation among under-
We will also tackle under-
We finally dealt with overseas trade and pointed out to Boris that India now accounts for the second highest inward investment into London and that Indian businesses play an important role in providing employment creating wealth within the capital and they can and want to do more. Against this background the Mayor visited India to develop stronger ties with this rising economic superpower. However, the criticism of this visit by the Conservative party has not gone down well within the Indian community in London. We therefore asked Boris for his view about creating strong links with India and other emerging economies to develop trade and cultural understanding. Boris said “I personally did not criticise the visit. I believe there were questions raised by the Conservative assembly members about the amount of the expenditure and composition of the delegation which did not appear to show that money had been well spent. It was not a criticism of the visit itself. I strongly believe that we should develop ties with growing economies such as India and China and should encourage and help those Londoners with established roots in those counties to develop trade and cultural links between our countries. We also need to make sure that international investors continue to see London as an attractive place to do business, therefore I will Champion London Internationally. We will continue to work with the Lord Mayor of London, UKTI, DBERR, the FCO and organisations such as Think London, LCCI and London’s Local Chambers to ensure that London remains one of the world’s leading business centres. Whilst we fully endorse the representation of London overseas, we are also committed to reviewing the GLA’s offices abroad to ensure that London is getting maximum value from the money being spent on them. This review will be conducted as part of our larger investigation of the GLA and its agencies’ financial expenditures”.
Going forward it is expected that EMBG and HCUK will continue to engage with all the three political parties and put your questions to them and report on their responses back to you. These will be published on our website www.embguk.co.uk. There is also further information there about our future activities in relation to the Mayoral election.
We will be working closely with Patrick Frederick and inputting into the London Business Manifesto which economic strategy that he is creating. In consultation with our members we are developing policies which we will put to the main parties for consideration into their National Manifestos.
If you are interested in taking part in influencing the way London is run then have you say and make sure you vote on MAY 1st
