Tory mayor candidate Shaun Bailey is backing an RPI plus 1% rise. (Picture Shaun for London)

The Conservative candidate for London mayor is backing a tube fare rise and a tax on tourists.

Shaun Bailey slammed Labour’s Sadiq Khan over the state of Transport for London’s (TfL) finances, while labelling an above-inflation Underground price increase ‘reasonable’.

In an exclusive interview with Metro.co.uk, Mr Bailey also opened up about ‘shi**y moments’ during his years of homelessness – and addressed controversial comments about single mums and girls ‘getting around’.

But he suggested Londoners would face an increasingly expensive commute regardless of whether he or heavy favourite Mr Khan win next May. The pair also face competition from independent Rory Stewart, a former Tory leadership candidate, Lib Dem Siobhan Benita and Green Sian Berry.




But Mr Bailey said he wanted to be ‘straight’ with the capital about the increase, though he did not confirm how much it would be – branding a maximum of ‘RPI plus 1%’ as ‘fair and reasonable’.

Mr Bailey spoke in depth about his experience of homelessness, roughly between the ages of 21 and 27 (Picture: Harrison Jones)

He explained: ‘I don’t know that for sure, nobody knows what TfL’s finances will look like in 2021.’

Mr Khan has frozen tube fares for the past three years and says Londoners can ‘trust him’ on the issue – but has not ruled out an increase ahead of writing his manifesto. TfL’s business plan ‘assumes that fares could broadly rise by RPI+1′, but the organisation stresses that pricing decisions are made by the mayor.

Criticising delays, overcrowding and ‘the Central Line in summer’, Mr Bailey added: ‘If TFL doesn’t work we are all in a pickle. (We need a rise) because the mayor hasn’t run the finances properly.

‘The longer you (take to) deal with that, the bigger the rise will become. You want to keep prices down but you have got to have the money to maintain and update it.’

The London Assembly Member added that the increase would ‘probably’ not apply to buses, ‘because you want to get bus ridership up’.

The 48-year-old Tory is also calling for a 1% tax on hotel and Airbnb rooms in the capital, which he hopes can generate £45 to £52 million for policing and the arts.

A former parliamentary candidate in two London seats, Mr Bailey also revealed details about his experience of homelessness in the city during his 20s.

He recalled: ‘I was homeless from about 21 ish to about 27. All the way through Uni I bounced among a couple of my friends… but I’m not that cute, the novelty starts to wear off when there’s some big black guy stretched out on your sofa.

‘I remember having a job but having nowhere to live. I remember having somewhere to stay and then being unemployed. When you have got one without the other it is a bit weird.

‘All of those experiences… I’m always desperate not to forget that, what life really looks like for people who are just trying to make ends meet.’

The 48-year-old stood as a Tory candidate in Hammersmith in 2010 and in Lewisham West and Penge in 2017 (Picture: Shaun for London)

The former youth worker, who never slept rough, jokes about being offered a place at his aunt’s for three or four weeks – and that he ended up staying on and off for three years.



He continued: ‘I smile but it had some shi**y moments. I remember one night in particular, staying with my old mate, literally having nowhere to go the next night.

‘I remember leaning back on the sofa and thinking “yeah better start to think about what I’m going to do tomorrow”, you know actually I don’t have a plan.

‘I went to uni [the next day] and was telling my buddy and I remember thinking “yeah you’re being quite dismissive, this feels like ground zero for me” and the reason he was quite dismissive was because he was thinking “you can come stay with me”.’

Mr Bailey went on: ‘We were both nursing a (shared lunch) and he just stood up and said “yeah just come and stay with me innit” and the sense of relief…

‘It was one of the greatest (moments), that, getting married and my daughter. It’s quite vivid.’

Suggesting it was vital to ‘believe we can end homelessness’ and encourage the government to spend money on it, he said ‘the most vulnerable’ homeless people should be given money via charities – rather than direct through Universal Credit.

Mr Bailey also played down controversial comments that ‘good looking girls tend to have been around’ and an article suggesting single motherhood was ‘wrongly assumed to be acceptable’. He apologised ‘unreservedly’ to anyone upset by the remarks.

Noting that he was the child of a single mother and had been running a single parent group at the time, he said his argument that some women ‘get pregnant for a flat’ is no longer correct after a change in the law.


He also said comments made 15 years ago should not be seen as ‘relevant’ and that he expressed the views about STIs while he was a ‘youth worker walking the streets continually, dealing with people in deepest situations because I was in one of the poorest communities in London.’

Mr Bailey said his comments were made in a ‘very particular situation’ while working ‘with some of the most misogynistic, in many cases violent, boys in all of the western world’.

He also suggested he ‘sympathised’ with the cause of Extinction Rebellion but that the environmental protest group should not be allowed to ‘close down London’ with their plan for ‘anarchy’ over the Christmas period.

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