Speeches and letters

HOUSING

First of all can I say that I am very much aware that this is the last session after a busy conference. Often it is at this point in a conference that - despite the best will in the world - heads can start to nod and drowsiness overcome you.

Well can I begin with a confession. I think I must be unique in that I have actually managed to fall asleep during one of my own speeches! I remember late one night reading aloud a 28 page speech, practising for the following day, only to be woken by my wife an hour and a half later and I was still on page four!

Housing policy will be fundamental to the role of the London Mayor. The London Mayor does not have specific responsibility for housing, but I believe the Mayor can have a massive influence - bringing people together, working with the GLA to co-ordinate the Boroughs, providing that strategic overview that is so desperately needed in London.

London has a two-tier crisis in housing. The first is the scourge of homelessness that continues to plague our capital. And the second is the chronic shortage of affordable housing for the lower paid professional, in key public services like nursing, teaching or the police, that are increasingly being "priced-out" of London.

Firstly on the crisis of homelessness. There are still over 400 homeless people sleeping on the streets of London on any given night. There are nearly 180,000 households on local council housing waiting lists in London. Nearly 40,000 statutory households were living in temporary accommodation in London last summer - and that doesn't even include the 15,000 asylum seekers. It is estimated that something like £92 million was spent by London local authorities on temporary accommodation in 1997-98. I have said all along that yes I want to see a cleaner, safer, more prosperous London, but I also want to see a fairer London as well.

As well as homelessness, around 75,000 households in London live in overcrowded accommodation. There are 310,000 households living in homes lacking basic amenities, in serious disrepair and with inadequate heating. That is not the way the nation's capital city in a supposedly civilised society can afford to house its population. And this has to be a major priority for the London Mayor and the new Assembly.

The Mayor will have responsibility for both planning and economic development - and if you cannot provide your people with somewhere decent and affordable place to live, how can we even start to seriously contemplate planning or economic development.

Just look at the shortage of affordable housing for some of our key public service workers, the challenge we face in London is just as great. The average house price in London is nearly £170,000 - almost double the average price outside the capital. And we also have the highest private sector rents in the country. A classroom teacher with five years experience working in inner London would earn a maximum of £22,812 a year - this would qualify them for a maximum mortgage of approximately £65,000. A nurse in London with five years experience on average earns about £18,500 a year. This would qualify them for a maximum mortgage of £52,725.

The London Mayor, I believe, will provide us with an unprecedented opportunity to offer a genuinely strategic government.

In housing, the new set-up gives us a chance to develop a genuinely London-wide policy. We can offer a broad, coherent policy for major developers. We need to take a much tougher approach in developing a London-wide development strategy on the issue of land use. We need to bring the local authorities together - local development plans will need to reflect a new London-wide policy. And the Mayor can be fundamental in facilitating this.

On the planning role, the Mayor can do a lot to ensure the Corporation thinks strategically. Regardless of what you may read in the press, who seem to be covering the Mayoral race as though it was some sort of quasi-presidential campaign, the London Mayor can, in reality, achieve very little alone. I want to work in partnership with the new Assembly, the London Boroughs, voluntary organisations - people who work in the front line - to tackle the major problems we face in London, on housing as in so may areas.

You know you can tell an awful lot about a place in its housing and its architecture. The history of our capital city can been seen in its housing. The rich diversity that characterises London - the great wealth we have in London - can be seen in its bricks and mortar. But you also get a picture of London's tremendous poverty. In a five-minute drive through London you can see great splendour standing side by side misery and homelessness. You can see the overcrowding or even the boarded up property.

The London Mayor can act as a catalyst. Not in achieving great miracles overnight - the problems we face are too large and too complex to be remedied by any quick fix. But the Mayor can act to bring people together. The Mayor can work in partnership with the GLA, the London Boroughs, many of the experts and organisations you have heard from today. And I believe that it is by building that partnership approach that we can find the practical solutions we need to the serious problems we face in London's housing.

Thank you.

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