Mayor of London Sadiq Khan: 'I have no other political ambitions'

Sadiq Khan, who won re-election with a 228,000-vote majority, was signed in as mayor at the Globe theatre

The mayor of London has been out and about this week in the north of England visiting a factory that makes electric buses.

I spoke to Sadiq Khan by phone when he was on the train back to the capital.

With Transport for London's (TfL) latest government funding deal looming, I asked him a couple of questions as he begins his second term as mayor.

What are you doing in the North?

The Labour candidate won the election after entering a run-off with Conservative rival Shaun Bailey

"What I'm trying to get across is it's in all of our interests, all parts of our country, to do well.

"We in London need these electric buses to help improve air quality and cut emissions but we need Yorkshire to have a state-of-the-art factory and a state-of-the-art skilled workforce.

"So it's in our interest for Yorkshire to do well and it's in their interest we get a deal to carry on investing in buses and so forth.

"We have to make government understand that if they want to help Yorkshire, they have to help London."

Is your job to be in the North? Is this about your own ambitions?

Sadiq Khan: "Mayor of London is a destination job and not a stepping stone"

"It's about building bridges. It's not a zero-sum game. Yorkshire doing well doesn't have to be at London's expense.

"I'm trying to build bridges between City Hall and government, TfL and the Department for Transport (DfT).

"For me, mayor of London is a destination job and not a stepping stone.

"[I have] no other political ambitions, no."

Are you worried about the strings attached to the latest government deal?

TfL has seen a drastic fall in passenger numbers due to the coronavirus pandemic

"I'm hoping now the election is out of the way the government won't use TfL as a political football.

"The key thing is to work together.

"You don't get a national recovery without a London recovery.

"All sensible options are on the table; the priority has got to be, though, the expansion of the Ultra Low Emission Zone (ULEZ) being a success.

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"At the same time we are looking at other ways of raising revenue and looking at a number of options. The experts are giving us a number of options and so road use-charging is one of them and there's a team at TfL looking at all kinds of options.

"The boundary charge is another option but these are conversations we want to have with the DfT.

"So it's really important we get round the table."