On London Extra: Promise or threat?

Will the budget help the capital live up to its opportunity ideals? Plus diversity within diversity, bikes and bus stops latest, tackling youth violence and more

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Some people speak of "the London Promise", summing up the unmatched possibilities the capital offers to those who seek to seize them - possibilities political leaders should seek to see extended to everyone, especially those who need a bit of help. The promise has become harder to keep in recent years, largely due to cost of living pressures and austerity. Has Rachel Reeve's dramatic first budget made making good on the London Promise any easier? Can the Mayor, who is among those who use the term, do more? Can other London leaders?

The promise is perhaps most likely to be broken if you are a Londoner who is homeless. London Councils estimates that around 185,000 Londoners, half of them children, are living in temporary accommodation provided by their local borough. It is the largest number ever recorded, and represents one Londoner in every 50. In an impressive but depressing report, Centre for London has found that more than 323,000 households are on waiting lists for social housing. That's more than double the population of Cambridge and a 33 per cent increase compared with 2017. They will wait for years, if not decades.

This is a desperate state of affairs, a social and economic foundation of the capital that urgently needs fixing. Has the Chancellor helped? Well, she has a bit. London will get a portion of the £500 million she has added to the national Affordable Homes Programme. Sadiq Khan thinks we should get a 20 per cent slice, which could contribute to an additional 1,000 homes being built in the capital. Reeves has also permitted all social housing providers to set rents at a rate slightly above inflation for the next five years, which will help them to balance their books and make it easier for them to build. Boroughs will now retain all the receipts from Right to Buy sales, which will make it easier to replace those lost. Funds have been found to help people avoid falling into homelessness. 

But although polite thanks have been given for these changes, the G15 group, many of whose members are really struggling, wanted a rent deal twice as long, and for various reasons housebuilding nationally has fallen to its lowest level for eight years. There are permissions for over 300,000 homes of all types to be built in Greater London, and although a chunk of those are likely never to be realised, many of them could be if developers were confident enough of the numbers stacking up to go ahead.