Rachel Reeves set to snub Sadiq Khan in humiliating Spending Review

Sources close to Sadiq Khan believe that Labour's Chancellor, Rachel Reeves, is set to snub London in this week’s Spending Review, with no funding expected for any of the major infrastructure projects Londoners desperately need. If confirmed, this would mean no support for the long-discussed Bakerloo Line extension, no DLR extension to Thamesmead, and no progress on the West London Orbital Rail between Hounslow and Hendon.

Failure to deliver on these projects would not only mean slower & more overcrowded journeys, but also significantly limit housebuilding. With fewer new homes, housing costs will continue to rise - and so would all the problems that come with high rents, including families and young people choosing to move out of the capital altogether. It would be a remarkable failure for Sadiq Khan to come away from a Labour Government’s first major Spending Review without a single major transport project backed - especially after spending his entire election campaign insisting that the “real prize” was a Labour Government "working hand-in-hand" with a Labour Mayor.

Keith Prince, City Hall Conservatives’ Transport Spokesman, said:

“When London succeeds, the rest of the country benefits. These major transport projects are not only vital for thousands, if not millions, of Londoners, but they will help to create the homes and jobs that are sorely needed to grow the country’s economy. From his failure to secure funding from Rachel Reeves for vital infrastructure, to his silence on Labour’s brutal cuts to the police and the Winter Fuel Allowance, it’s clear Sadiq Khan is putting his party before the people he was elected to serve.”