January 2020 saw the busiest week of the year in City Hall as our Assembly Members, Sian Berry and Caroline Russell, proposed Green budget amendments to the London Assembly. As usual they were full of good ideas the Mayor needs to take up.
They lead on the climate emergency proposing to boost the solar panel fund, put extra money in to make sure all schools in polluted areas get an air pollution audit and create a £15 million fund to help charities and youth groups who rely on vans and minibuses to get new low-emission vehicles in time for the new ULEZ.
There were also plans for a Social Housing Commissioner for London and for using unallocated business rates to boost the Young Londoners Fund the Greens won last year.
Sian Berry said: “Our amendment continues our three year push for more investment in young people. This is something we’ll always push for until we are investing more in young Londoners than we were in 2011, not much less as my annual research on the cuts across London has exposed.”
Greens in City Hall are also looking to the future of work, by getting the Chief Officer at City Hall to do a feasibility study into the benefits of moving the GLA group of organisations to a four-day working week. With the Wellcome Trust saying this week they are doing the same, London should be as forward thinking on this as we were about the Living Wage, which Greens in City Hall also helped to pioneer over 15 years ago.
We hope the Mayor is listening and will get all our proposals into his final budget plans next month.