Short-termism in the boardroom doesn’t just damage investors, it hurts us all. Thankfully, the evidence – sometimes from surprising places – shows that doing the right thing does pay off.
Here in London, voters are choosing a new mayor as I write. By the time you read this, we’ll know the outcome. During the campaign, the one issue all the candidates have agreed on is the lack of affordable homes – or rather the imbalance between restricted supply and escalating demand which is driving up the price of all forms of housing, whether purchased or rented.
The think-tank New Economics Foundation (where I’ve just joined the board of trustees) used the occasion of the Queen’s 90th birthday to show how the rise in UK house prices have outstripped average earnings twice over during her lifetime. There’s not much point in being 21,839% better off (yes really, in money terms) if you still can’t afford to put a roof over your head. In London, the trends are even more acute. Continue reading →
EU fines for pollution should be welcomed if they force the government to act.
Your report on Britain being given a second and final warning by the European commission to clean up the capital’s air (Clean up! Europe warns Britain, 4 June) quoted a spokesman for the mayor of London saying that his air quality strategy will help to “address the concerns that triggered this legal action”. I am far from convinced.
European Union warnings about fines for air pollution might seem like the last thing we need, but this was a necessary decision. Emission level laws have been in force since 2005. The previous government failed to act, and the mayor, Boris Johnson, is simply not showing the urgency required.
Much attention is rightly given to reducing the 3,000 deaths on our roads, including talk of tough new alcohol limits. Yet because air pollution is largely invisible, both Whitehall and the mayor have been able to dither and delay.
Since the European commission started legal proceedings against the UK some 18 months ago the number of new practical measures to tackle air pollution has been pitiful. In the meantime many children in London have faced stunted development of their lungs, and 690,000 Londoners continue to suffer from asthma.
There was no clearer demonstration of the complacency in tackling air pollution than that of Johnson’s spokesman, who dismissed the EU’s legal threat because “the mayor has published an air quality strategy and the government has resubmitted additional information to the commission”.
However, for the mayor’s strategy to address the EU’s concerns would depend on desperate measures, including hosing down roads and making unannounced road closures in central London on bad days.
Instead of these ragbag measures, the mayor must consider bolder and more effective proposals. My plan for a clean air zone in central London – modelled on Berlin, where only vehicles which comply with emissions standards can be driven – would take the oldest and most polluting diesel engines off our streets and offer help for both retro-fitting filters and scrappage. It would put to good use the existing camera technology in the western extension area that Johnson wants to dismantle.
The threat of EU fines is not the main issue. Yet if they persuade Whitehall and the mayor into taking real action we might one day look back and be grateful that it was these fines, or the threat of them, that finally tackled the killer of air pollution.
ay off.