‘I’m a democrat. I don’t complain. I’ve lost plenty of elections’ – Tim Barnes, Conservative candidate for the Cities of London and Westminster

Tim Barnes is the Conservative candidate for the Cities of London and Westminster seat. He lives and works in the constituency and is a former councillor and cabinet member on Westminster Council who represented the West End ward.

In 2022 he lost his seat as Labour took control of the council for the first time in its history.

He is certainly a good storyteller with a trove of fascinating anecdotes. As the final candidate in my series of interviews, Barnes certainly ended it on an exciting note, even palming the table at one point as he passionately spoke on reducing carbon emissions.

I began our discussion by asking him what he plans to do about the huge number of people sleeping on the streets.

How do you plan to address the issue of rising homelessness, including rough sleeping, and improve affordability and conditions for private renters?

Housing is one of my six main objectives and key parts of my plan. There’s a lot to be done in this area.

Firstly, we need to build more houses. We’ve committed to building 1.6 million in the next parliament, slightly more than Labour. In this parliament, we built a million, which was a good start but not enough. For example, Sadiq Khan has only achieved four percent of his affordable housing target.

Secondly, we need to continue with leasehold reform. I want to see an end to no-fault evictions, which is important and an objective we’re working towards.

A lot of this is about homelessness. I want to alleviate the pressures and root causes of homelessness.

Rough sleeping is often what people mean when they refer to homelessness, but it’s different. In central London, our constituency has a unique rough sleeping profile. During Covid-19, many people came to Westminster because they thought they would receive better care. We saw a surge in rough sleepers as a result.

Around 40 to 45 percent of rough sleepers here are British or Irish and have serious issues with drugs and alcohol. Westminster used to ensure anyone who wanted it could get a hostel place within 24 hours, spending about £8 million a year on this. But some people don’t want a hostel place because they don’t want to give up alcohol or drugs. I understand that.

We want to use our outreach teams more to engage with people and focus on their complex needs. We introduced dedicated teams to refer people to support programs or offer alternatives like hostels.

Another 40 to 45 percent of rough sleepers are from Southeast Europe and often part of organised begging gangs. This is a difficult situation and effectively modern slavery. We need to work closely with Crisis Connections and others who understand these cultural sensitivities to help these individuals.

In some cases, trying to leave these gangs can lead to violence against family members back in Southeast Europe. It’s organised criminal activity, and we need to address it seriously.

Are you in support of scrapping the two-child cap on benefits? And why? 

I wouldn’t eliminate it entirely. But you’d catch quite a lot of families in the highest levels of deprivation, even if you only raised it to three, which might sound odd. But it’s quite understandable — if you have five kids, moving from two to three still makes a significant difference.

There’s a point where the costs of raising children increase rapidly with each additional child. So I would opt to increase it rather than eliminate it.

What measures will you implement to reduce rising crime levels?

Fundamentally, nationally, crime rates are decreasing, but London stands out as the only region where knife crime is on the rise. There are several concerning aspects where London deviates from national trends. For instance, it’s the sole area in the UK that failed to meet its police recruitment targets, despite Mayor Sadiq Khan returning £30 million allocated for officer recruitment back to the central government.

As the overseer of policing in London, Mayor Khan has implemented a three-borough policing arrangement, severing ties with many experienced officers who previously had intimate knowledge of local crime dynamics. Historically, Westminster, especially the West End, benefited from experienced officers deployed to manage high-crime areas like Greek Street. However, this has shifted towards using these areas for officer training, resulting in patrols conducted inefficiently in large groups rather than strategically on a street-by-street basis. This approach fails to provide the visible police presence that reassures the public and effectively addresses crime.

I advocate for a return to borough-based policing, which I consider crucial. Mayor Khan must be held accountable to achieve his recruitment goals for police officers. If local recruitment falls short, I propose national recruitment to bolster Metropolitan Police numbers.

Conversations with local stakeholders, such as retail managers along Oxford Street or bar owners in Fitzrovia and Soho, highlight frustrations with police response times. Instances where police take hours to arrive after being called for incidents like drug-related altercations are particularly troubling. Swift action and prosecution for lower-level crimes are necessary to deter disorder and improve safety, especially concerning issues like shoplifting, which increasingly plague retail environments with stringent security measures.

Do you agree with Wes Streeting that the private sector should be used to clear the NHS backlog?

The critical principle is that healthcare should be free at the point of delivery, right? Whether it’s critical care or long-term care, the foundation of a public healthcare system should ensure that people don’t feel hindered or constrained when seeking necessary treatment. So, when you approach for the care you need, there shouldn’t be a direct cost to you. It doesn’t make sense to me to set a limit that says, “Well, as the state provider, if we lack capacity or if someone else offers a cheaper alternative, we should not take advantage of that.” It’s a practical use of public funds.

This approach also allows for increased capacity. So, as long as we uphold the principle of free delivery at the point of care, I’m less concerned about the specific structures used to achieve it.

Regarding long-term conditions and cancer, the backlogs are severe, especially those exacerbated by Covid-19 that we’re still working to resolve. Short-term measures to address these backlogs are necessary and welcome. We’ve made progress, but it’s not happening as quickly as needed.

Do you agree with asking NHS staff to work longer hours to clear the waiting list backlogs?

We should definitely offer overtime, and we do, to NHS staff who volunteer to help clear it. I firmly believe that nobody should be compelled to work beyond their contractual hours. However, it makes sense to utilise NHS staff across all levels — from GPs to pharmacy and hospital staff — who are familiar with their facilities and systems. Maximising their expertise and integrating additional staff into these environments where feasible is essential.

In addition to utilising existing staff more effectively, we’re implementing other strategies to alleviate the backlog. For instance, there’s a push to increase the initial triage done in pharmacies. This doesn’t replace the role of doctors but aims to divert minor cases such as skin burns, abrasions, sprains, or mild infections that may only require expert assessment and advice, such as determining the need for antibiotics or other treatments. By freeing up capacity in GP practices or hospitals, we can prioritise more urgent cases and improve overall efficiency in healthcare delivery.

Do you believe Thames Water should be nationalised? Why or why not? Should utilities remain in the private sector or be publicly run?

Thames Water should be allowed to go bankrupt. If it’s been mismanaged to the extent that shareholders have extracted so much money that it can no longer fulfil its responsibilities, then bankruptcy is the consequence.

This doesn’t mean that water pipes, gutters, and sewage systems will disappear; rather, they would be transferred to a more competent operator. Therefore, there’s no justification for using public funds. It’s not as though we have surplus public funds available for such purposes.

If public money is spent on resolving this issue, it detracts from other potential public sector investments. The fundamental principle here is that companies should face the consequences of their actions, fostering accountability not only in utilities but across the private sector. Bailing out companies each time removes the risk of failure and only encourages more irresponsible behaviour, whether in utilities, banks, or any other industry.

How will you support home insulation to reduce bills and improve energy efficiency, thus reducing carbon emissions?

So there are already existing schemes to support additional home insulation aimed at reducing heating bills and associated carbon emissions. One of the most effective ways to achieve lower carbon emissions is through the use of low-carbon energy generation. In the UK, the installation of offshore wind farms stands out as a significant success story over the past decade, leading to the country having the largest offshore wind capacity in Europe.

A few years ago, it was uncommon for the UK to go several days without relying on heavy carbon-emitting energy sources. Now, we’re approaching approximately 100 days this year where no coal-fired power stations or similar heavy carbon emitters were used. This marks a crucial achievement in reducing carbon emissions.

When it comes to insulation, many older buildings in areas like Fitzrovia and the West End pose challenges due to their construction, which often lacks energy efficiency. Buildings from the 1920s and 1930s, while visually appealing, can be some of the least efficient in terms of heat retention, especially those with single-pane windows.

In recent years, various projects supported by universities and the public sector have explored ways to improve the energy efficiency of older housing stock, including Grade 1 listed properties. Examples include projects in Soho Square and Royal College Street, demonstrating successful approaches to upgrading buildings to modern energy efficiency standards.

Currently, there’s a need to encourage more widespread adoption of these techniques. Surprisingly, heritage laws have sometimes hindered efforts to make sensible improvements in energy efficiency. There’s potential to enhance the appearance of windows, for instance, by replacing outdated single-pane windows with modern double-glazed alternatives that meet current energy efficiency standards.

The key is to bridge the gap between preserving heritage and achieving environmental goals effectively.

How would you improve the environment for walking, wheeling, and cycling?

The management of e-bikes as it is right now is a disaster. We’ve got 200 parking bays, and this was a decision by the Labour Council who did a deal with Lime in order to move things on. And I don’t wholly criticise them for trying, I just think they need to admit this doesn’t work.

We have tens of thousands of bikes coming into Westminster every day because everybody works here. And we have ten times as many people working here as living here. And so we have to host all those bikes in the daytime. And the thousands of bikes into 200 bays, just basic maths, it just doesn’t go. And so we need to either massively increase the number of bays, like another 10 percent of bays, so another 20 bays. Not helpful, actually makes things worse. Two hundred, 300 bays, maybe.

But then we need the companies to pay and we’ll have to work out other things that we need to do because we’ll have lost delivery bays for vehicles. We’ll be losing places where emergency vehicles, like police, ambulance and fire brigade can pull up.

I’m very much an active traveller but we need a better management scheme. And I really do hold Westminster Council responsible for the current mess.

I walk everywhere. I’m very happy to see cyclists. Personally, I don’t think I’d be safe on a bike on a regular basis.

But the other side of it is we have to reduce the air pollution that everybody’s moving through. We still play host to some of the worst air pollution in Europe. Still bits around Oxford Circus, Cambridge Circus, Marylebone Road are horrific. And it is an outrage, an absolute outrage, that in 2024 Sadiq Khan still allows diesel buses puffing out along Oxford Circus. The 55, the 22, like how do we not have emissions-free, clean buses in the worst polluting hotspots? They’re the things that should have been prioritised. And we want to encourage more active travel.

We have to clean up the air. All we’ve got to do is sort out, well… it’s not the only thing we do, but the buses are a huge part of that. And the fact he hasn’t done it is, in my view, criminal. He’s killing people by not cleaning up those buses.

Do you support the position of countries like Norway, Ireland, Spain (and many others) in recognizing a Palestinian state?

There is the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank. There has been Hamas in Gaza. So who are you recognising? If you’re recognising the Palestinian Authority, that’s not necessarily a bad thing or a bad place to start. But it doesn’t actually help to alleviate anything in Gaza.

I do believe in a model for a two-state solution. But I don’t think this is the point of the process where you do that. We work out what the state is. We work out who’s representing them. We have a decent set of negotiations about the structures. But right now, the Palestinian Authority is widely recognised as having done a fairly awful job.

It’s held up as a model of corruption in the context of the Middle East. So that doesn’t seem to be the answer. After all, they got kicked out of Gaza at the one time that there was an election.

So until you’ve actually got a framework of who is doing the representation, and that has a democratic basis, I don’t see how that helps you. I think it’s performative rather than constructive.

What should be the UK’s relationship with the European Union?

I was a passionate campaigner for Remain. There’s an embarrassing photograph of me that appears in the Camden New Journal on the anniversary of Brexit Day every year of me looking up at a board where basically just looking, you know, shocked. But we had a referendum and my side lost, right?

I’m a democrat. I don’t complain. I’ve lost plenty of elections, many of them here and you don’t turn around and go: “Well, I think the people got it wrong”. You don’t just basically say you’ve been hoodwinked or whatever. That doesn’t make any sense whatsoever.

All the polls right now are pointing to a huge Labour majority on a minority of votes, right? They’re still not going to win 50 percent of the vote, even if they end up winning, you know, 70 percent of the seats and so you have to have a system that respects democratic outcomes.

I would like a close trading relationship with Europe. There is no doubt about the fact that we need decent trading links. We need cooperation on a wealth of issues but we can’t be talking about overturning a democratic referendum in less than 10 years. These are things that you get to talk about every couple of generations.

But the other side of it is we have no idea what we’re talking about. We had a uniquely good deal. We had a rebate on costs. We had a whole load of exemptions on things we didn’t like that were negotiated over three decades. And if we start talking to Europe now, we don’t know what the deal would be. 

They don’t particularly want us and so saying we’d rejoin is a stupid thing to say, because we literally have no idea what the model of that would look like. What we can do is work closely, as we should do, with our neighbours. 

Find out more about Tim Barnes on his website: votetimbarnes.org