TECHNOLOGY, DATA AND ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
Artificial intelligence regulation is a national and international matter. What a Mayor controls is the physical infrastructure it runs on, the roads it drives on, and the terms on which the GLA group itself uses it. The instinct here is straightforward: welcome the enterprise and the investment, protect the public, and never grasp for powers this office should not hold.
- A ban on the promotion and construction of new data centres in every one of London’s thirty-two boroughs and the City.Data centres consume grid capacity, land and water that London needs for homes, while creating almost no lasting local employment for the space and power they take. The London Plan is the statutory development strategy every borough plan must conform to, and mayoral call-in reaches strategic applications directly. I will write a presumption against new data centre development into the London Plan across all thirty-two boroughs and the City, refuse strategic applications that come before me, and decline to promote London as a location for them. Where an operator claims an overriding case, the burden will be on them to prove it in public.
- A cautious, safety-first approach to automated vehicles on London’s road network, with trials permitted only against strict published conditions.TfL controls trial permissions on its roads. Regulatory, no cost.
- Delivery drones restricted, with London’s objection pressed at every airspace consultation.Airspace is regulated by the Civil Aviation Authority. The Mayor is a consultee and controls ground-level access.
- An end to artificial intelligence driven surge pricing in supermarkets.Consumer pricing sits with the Competition and Markets Authority. Referral and public campaign are the instruments.
- Accuracy and honesty expected of London’s news and broadcast media, with complaints referred to Ofcom where warranted.Broadcast regulation is Ofcom’s exclusive remit. A Mayor who could fine broadcasters for content would be a danger to the free press, and I would not want the power.
- Free speech defended across London, in public assembly, in advertising and on the transport network.Applied directly to TfL advertising policy and GLA public space, and defended publicly.