London mayoral election 2024: Rayhan Haque pledges four-day working week and plan for AI revolution

A social policy campaigner who hopes to become the next mayor of London has pledged to introduce a four-day working week and prepare the capital for the AI- revolution if elected.

Independent candidate Rayhan Haque says he was driven to run for the top job at City Hall after seeing how “broken the status quo is” in London. 

The 38-year-old, who was previously a member of the Labour Party, said he would bring in citizen assemblies to create policies around major issues including the housing crisis and knife crime.

Mr Haque, who live in Docklands, describes himself as a “millennial renter”.

“Part of the reason I was drawn into this battle is because I don’t think anyone is speaking up for our generation,” he told LondonWorld.

“We’re all very successful with jobs and good salaries, and yet it is absolutely a nightmare to live in London.”

To tackle London’s housing crisis Mr Haque said he would establish a City Hall owned and controlled building company to build “hundreds of thousands of beautiful and affordable homes”.

“My approach involves utilising more land for development, such as Transport for London (TfL) surplus land, brownfield sites, grey belt areas, and some golf courses.”

On ULEZ

Mr Haque said if elected he would keep the Ultra Low Emission Zone (ULEZ) as he believes Londoners should benefit from clean air. 

However he added that Sadiq Khan had handled the ULEZ expansion “really poorly”.

“So first of all, he did not have a mandate for the expansion to the greater London boundaries. So I would have put it to the people in the mayoral election,” he said.

“Secondly I wouldn’t have done it in the middle of a cost of living crisis. He could have staggered it.

“And the third thing he should have done is front loaded the support package so that people can just transition to ULEZ compliant vehicles.”

Mr Haque said he would also keep the congestion charge but not introduce any road pricing scheme in London, like pay-per-mile.

On AI revolution

Mr Haque says he wants to “futureproof London” as he believes the capital is “completely unprepared for the AI revolution”.

“AI is going to be the biggest transformation that we will see in the next decade. No one is preparing the city for it as a lot of people are worried about their jobs and livelihoods in years to come,” he said.

Mr Haque has pledged to create a “People’s Tech Fund” along with “a universal AI academy for all Londoners, so they can learn those skills”.

The fund would “help get state-of-the-art equipment into some of the poorest schools in London, so they can benefit from all the opportunities of coding, and other AI innovations”, as well as supporting AI start-ups in the capital.

Other promises Mr Haque has made include introducing a four-day working week by 2030, rebuilding community policing and creating a new gold standard for youth services in London.

“I promise to get knife crime falling within two years and if I don’t I will resign,” he said.

Mayoral candidates

Other independent mayoral candidates who have declared so far include CEO and university chancellor Natalie Campbell, gym owner Andreas Michli and investment banker Tarun Ghulati.

Sadiq Khan is fighting for a third term as the Labour mayor of London, against Conservative candidate Susan Hall, Liberal Democrat’s Rob Blackie, the Green’s Zoe Garbett, the Reform Party’s Howard Cox and the Social Democrat’s Amy Gallagher.

The mayoral election will take place on May 2 and it will be the first time the election uses the first-past-the-post system. Previously it followed a supplementary vote system.