Andrew’s lengthy speech discussed Havering and Greater London. His speech was autobiographical and historical. He began with a long list of Havering’s Essex roots.
Havering is an Essex region with long historic connexions. He cited his home address, St Edward’s church, Essex county cricket club, and the water supply from Essex and Suffolk amongst many other examples.
Andrew outlined the baleful impact of Greater London, which has led to, “60 years of muddle, confusion and constant debate about whether Romford and Havering remain part of Essex or not.”2
Andrew says Havering is paying too much for too little because it’s a London borough. He airily remarked it cost, “…tens of millions of pounds per year.” Andrew didn’t say how much Havering pays, though the data is readily available. Assertions should be supported with facts.
Andrew claimed ULEZ should have been avoided.He believes ULEZ is a ‘Bad Thing’- people with respiratory illnesses probably disagree. Andrew added that his constituents disapproved of Greater London but provided no polling data.
Policing is a major issue. Andrew says Havering suffers as a London borough. He said, “….if you speak to my constituents, they will tell you that they believe Havering residents are in effect subsidising inner London areas…” Amazingly Andrew didn’t remark that Havering, who are bankrupt, pays an additional £1 million to the MetPolice to guarantee local policing.
Leaving London would mean Havering losing the beloved Freedom Pass. Pensioners adore it and they are reliable voters. Andrew wants the Freedom Pass extended to contiguous counties. This means TfL would take control of links into London. TfL will become far larger if Andrew’s proposition is supported, which implies a ‘levy’ on the new areas.Will they be pleased to pay the price?3
Andrew’s heart-felt sincerity came through loud and clear and was praised by the minister, Jim McMahan. He said, “I pay tribute to the hon. Member for championing his area and for the very clear passion that he has for the place he represents.”
Notes
1 Bing Videos and Havering Borough and Essex Devolution – Hansard – UK Parliament
2 All quotes are from the Hansard report of the speech
3 The Freedom Pass isn’t free. Havering pays £8m p.a. for access to the system.
Politics in Havering 
Dear Chris,
Havering is both London and Essex but Andrew is promoting a more heat than light debate to win emotional support as he knows his let’s leave the GLA solution is impossible to deliver, whatever the merits, for practical political reasons.
This is because it would need:-
Instead, a more realistic and democratic policy is to reform the GLA by abolishing the post of Elected Mayor and allowing the Assembly (elected by proportional representation) to elect the Mayor as in Havering. This would give effective representation to all parts of GLA.
This constitutional change is more achievable than leaving but alas boring so ignored by Andrew despite his angst with Mayor Khan who was re-elected with 44% of the vote on a 41% turnout or 18% of the registered vote!
Regards
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Thank you for your comment.
The detail of the exit from London needn’t detain you as it only indulges his gesture politics.
The *need* to reform the GLA isn’t obvious. London needs a strong political leader to make decisions for the greatest city in Britain and one of the greatest in the world. Khan’s leadership over the ULEZ introduction shows the importance of strong independent leadership.
The important you make about turnout can’t be over-stressed. But democracy is about who turns up to exercise their democratic rights.
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It’s amazing that Rosindell sucked up to Boris Johnson when he was Mayor. Rozza just doesn’t like Mayor Khan for some reason.
I wonder if Rosindell has costed the option with Essex police, NHS trust, schools, libraries, roads and rail and more. Tfl would move us to zone 8, doubling our transport costs and Freedom pass costs. And what of London buses that operate here? There would be loads more to consider, but that’s too much like hard work.
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Havering was created two years *before* Andrew was born. It’s very difficult to see the muddle and confusion that he talks about. It really is gesture politics. He feels, probably wrongly, that anyone actually cares beyond a small group of his acolytes. So to even concern yourself with detail is to indulge him….And it isn’t worth the effort.
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ULEZ fuels the emotional urge to leave, except ULEZ was introduced to secure more government funding as the conservative government also wanted ULEZ. In other words, out of the pan into the fire as both Globalist New Labour and New Conservative supported environmentally harmful ULEZ.
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Thank you for your comment.
“….supported environmentally harmful ULEZ.”
Really? ULEZ is a public health measure to improve the air quality of London. The scrappage scheme cost £200m+ and the supporting enforcement network cost about the same. Quite how this adds up to a revenue generating scheme isn’t obvious.
ULEZ was introduced in the teeth of opposition from the national Labour party who thought that the failure to gain Uxbridge was entirely because of Mayor Khan’s proposition. He showed political courage and was rewarded with a third term as mayor. The public health of London has improved because of his political courage.
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Havering has good air quality in part due to our extensive greenery, but as the wind blows through the borough from everywhere how is it possible to attribute any improvement or reduction in air quality to ULEZ, particularly as this punitive scheme mostly involves removing a few seldom used but often vital older cars off Havering roads?
ULEZ is environmentally harmful as it directs resources away from targeting specific and significant pollution towards targeting poorer workers and pensioners for the audacity of owning an older car, hence why it was opposed by UNITE and why Mayor Khan only got 18% of the registered vote.
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He proposes to abolish Havering and volunteer it to become part of an ongoing local government reorganisation that is already happening in order to avoid being part of one that isn’t. There are no plans for a reorganisation within London as he implies. “Merger with Thurrock and others” isn’t as emotive as what he has says but it is what would happen, along with the loss of services, increase in council tax and a convoluted settlement for services that are outside the scope of the local government review such as police, which would become taxation without representation. If this is his life’s work it has been a waste of a life.
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Merging with Thurrock means accepting some responsibility for their billion £££s+ debt. Merging with Brentwood and Epping means that they accept a huge Freedom Pass levy. Policing would become a nightmare (it already is) with the £1m supplement paid to the MetPolice having to be renegotiated. Would Essex really cooperate?
This isn’t political discourse it is an emotional spasm.
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The Freedom Pass scheme is only available to London boroughs and would not be available to Havering outside London, no matter what anyone tells you. It is regulated by the Greater London Authority Act and there is no provision for it. Havering outside London would fall back to the England Concessionary Bus Pass. Councils can supplement the basic service with rail/tube top ups but any Thameside or South West Essex authority would not be able to afford it. It would also be politically impossible to implement that for only part of the new council area. And to throw another spanner in the works, TfL would not be able to run services that are entirely outside London using subsidy from within it. That’s a lot of bus services to be cut.
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Thank you for your comment.
I am ashamed to admit that your analysis of the actuality of the Freedom Pass was new knowledge for me. For that….A big thank you. Doubtless in future blogs I will drill down more forensically into the legislation.
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Another separate but related issue is whether to change the borough name. Changing the name from LB Havering to LB Romford and Hornchurch would correct a mistake made, due to political rivalries, when the new council was formed in 1965. This would be easy to achieve and culturally significant, albeit still involve name change costs.
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Thank you for your comment.
Cosmetic changes are irrelevant and costly.
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