Sir Ed Davey sets out Lib Dems' pitch to London

The party conference season is under way - with the Liberal Democrats meeting in Brighton from Sunday.

BBC London's political editor Karl Mercer is sitting down with leaders and other senior party figures to discuss some of the key issues facing the capital and what their party might do to tackle them.

Earlier this week he spoke to Lib Dem leader Sir Ed Davey, and asked about the party's performance in May's local elections and its prospects in London at the next general election.

Karl Mercer: Why should people vote Lib Dem in London? What have you got to offer that is different to what you offered in May's local elections, when you didn't do particularly well?

Sir Ed Davey: I thought we did really well, actually. If you look at our councillors in south-west London, people showed real confidence and we increased our support there in the number of councillors. And if you look at other parts of London, places like Ealing, Camden and Brent, we did incredibly well.

Karl Mercer: When we were talking last time, before those elections, and you mentioned Ealing, Camden, Brent and Merton, you were going, 'yeah, we've got a really good chance in Merton' - you didn't get anywhere.

All you've done really is consolidate the base that you've got in south-west London, which you are struggling to get out of in any meaningful way.

Sir Ed Davey: As you've, I think, conceded, Ealing, Brent and Camden were excellent results. And if you look at the results across London and you play them into a general election, we get our best-ever result or best for over 100 years, [in the] number of MPs.

So I think that's a pretty good basis and we are growing out of south-west London.

You're right, Merton was disappointing. If you look at Wimbledon, that we took for the first time ever two years ago, we really consolidated that very well.

If you look at housing, where we're building lots of new social homes, if you look at crime where we're leading campaigns for more local community police, I think there's a lot that people are voting for.

Karl Mercer: When you talk about housing, does your pledge for housing in London extend to what the mayor says in his draft London plan, that building on the green belt has to be a big part of that?

Sir Ed Davey: National government has changed the green-belt designation though to include grey belt and that has changed the whole debate.

But if you take Liberal Democrat-run councils in London - take Kingston, where I have to say my wife is the housing portfolio holder, we're building more council homes than we have for 50 years.

Karl Mercer: Will you build them on the green belt then?

Sir Ed Davey: Well, we don't always need to build on the green belt, do we? We are building on brownfield land, we're regenerating sites and that is an excellent proposal, I think.

Karl Mercer: Are you against building on the green belt? Will you step in to stop building development on the green belt?

Sir Ed Davey: Well, we have opposed building on the green belt where that is really environmentally very, very important.

We're having to struggle with the new designation that I talked about, with grey-belt land, and that is challenging for many areas because the infrastructure is not there.

And what we have argued time and time again is this top-down approach that doesn't involve the community means that you don't get the transport infrastructure, the water infrastructure, the social infrastructure for schools and health.

That is critical if we're going to build sustainable communities.

Karl Mercer: Put those in and you would build on the green belt?

Sir Ed Davey: It's the grey-belt designation which is the debate in London now, and the problem is where you're seeing that being put forward by developers, the infrastructure is not there and so that is the critical point.

People do want more homes, we're building more homes, more social homes, more affordable homes, but we're trying to make sure that the infrastructure is there so people have GPs to go to, have schools for the kids.

Karl Mercer: There's a by-election coming up, in an area that the Lib Dems used to run back in 2010 and are now nowhere near running the council. What do you think your chances are in Holborn and St Pancras?

Sir Ed Davey: Well, we've made some successes in Camden in the borough, not so much in Holborn and St Pancras, it's fair to say.

I actually regret this by-election is happening, because we want to focus on stability in our government, and it's a bit disappointing that Keir Starmer has provided this, but we've got an excellent candidate, Patrick Stillman, who's a Camden councillor and I think will be campaigning for votes across the constituency.

Karl Mercer: You're not concerned finally that you have become irrelevant given the challenges that Reform and the Greens have launched in London - particularly the Greens, who seem to have stepped into that soft-left or the left part of opposition?

Sir Ed Davey: We have many more councillors than the Greens across London. We made some really good gains in May. We consolidated our strongholds in the south west, in Kingston, in Richmond and in Sutton.

We still did incredibly well in Merton. And if you look at the success in places like Ealing and indeed Southwark, we would have taken new seats at Westminster if those results were copied at the next general election.

I think we could get our best result in London at the next general election for over 100 years. We're going forwards in London.

Karl Mercer: We'll leave it on the optimistic note. Thank you.

Listen to the best of BBC Radio London on Sounds and follow BBC London on Facebook, X and Instagram. Send your story ideas to hello.bbclondon@bbc.co.uk