Greater London Low Emission Zone Charging (Amendment) Bill

Debate between John McDonnell and Ruth Cadbury

Friday 22nd March 2024 Commons Chamber

[Ruth Cadbury]

As I have said, I will come on to the detail of the scrappage scheme later. I can address that point, because my constituency is crossed by the north and south circulars, so we have already been there.

As we know, the Bill proposes to amend

“the boundaries of the Greater London Low Emission Zone and Ultra Low Emission Zone”,

and provides that Transport for London—in other words, the London Mayor—

“may not make an order amending those boundaries without the consent of the Secretary of State”.

Under the Greater London Authority Act 1999, transport in London is a devolved matter and the responsibility of the Mayor and TfL. As such, Parliament granted the power to make decisions on London-wide road-charging schemes to the Mayor. The proposed changes pose a threat to the powers of the Mayor of London, the Greater London Authority, and devolved places around the country. I am disappointed that the Minister has announced that the Government will support this Bill, given their long-standing position that local road-charging powers are the responsibility of the Mayor and TfL. Any support for such a Bill is regressive and anti-devolution.

The previous Mayor of London, before becoming Conservative Prime Minister, introduced the ULEZ, which came into operation in April 2019. In October 2021, he ensured its extension to the north and south circular roads. The current Mayor of London, as we know, then extended it to all of Greater London in August 2023. The Bill seeks to revert us to having the boundary at the north and south circular roads. I cannot see the logic in that.

Devolution is one of the key issues here, along with tackling air pollution. The ULEZ stems from Government legislation, which local government is required to abide by, and which was first championed in London by a Conservative Mayor of London. Under the Greater London Authority Act 1999—

[John McDonnell]

I served on the Bill Committee for that Act. At first, the Conservative party opposed the restoration of a Mayor for London and a Greater London Authority, but as we went through the legislation, an element of consensus built up, particularly in the local government community and among London MPs, about the sort of powers that the Mayor and the GLA should have, including around these sorts of issues. There was consensus that if we established these structures, they would need to be properly empowered, and then there was a debate about resourcing. The Bill before us flies in the face of the debate on that Act. As I say, I was on that Committee, and if I remember rightly, Glenda Jackson was the Minister.

[Ruth Cadbury]

I thank my right hon. Friend, who was a member of the Greater London Council, which was abolished by a Conservative Government who did not like what the Labour London government was doing —so much for respect for local politicians.

Under the Greater London Authority Act 1999, transport and air quality in London are devolved matters that are the responsibility of the Mayor and Transport for London. The Bill is an affront to the principle of devolution, and the principle of allowing local leaders to make the decisions needed to deliver local priorities and meet objectives set by national Government. Air pollution is a health crisis. There is a national air crisis. Targets to tackle that are rightly set by central Government. Across the country, the Government have required and encouraged the introduction of clean air zones. The Bill is plainly party political point scoring, given that the Government have required and encouraged many other clean air zones across the country.

The Bill seeks to:

“Amend the boundaries of the Greater London Low Emission Zone and Ultra Low Emission Zone; to provide that Transport for London may not make an order amending those boundaries without the consent of the Secretary of State”.

The boundaries of the zone would be amended, so that the new boundary would be the edge of the inner zone —that is, the new boundary would be the boundary that was put in place in October 2021, before the zone was expanded up to, but not including, the north and south circulars. Given the concerns of drivers coming from Dartford and other places into London, what is the logic of removing ULEZ from outer London but not inner London? Surely the hon. Member for Dartford (Gareth Johnson) represents residents and businesses who drive into central London. Either oppose ULEZ or support ULEZ; this Bill is neither one thing nor the other.

The Bill will prevent TfL from amending the boundaries without the express consent of the Secretary of State. It would restrict the ability of the Mayor of London and TfL to make amendments to the charging area by forcing the Greater London Authority to request permission from the Secretary of State first, and would place a duty on the Secretary of State to consider London election manifesto commitments. It is very bizarre. The Bill means that there will be contradictory decisions made in different parts of the country. The Bill strikes me as being part of a historical antipathy on the part of Conservative Governments to Labour leaders in Greater London.

As others have said eloquently, this Government could do so much more to address air pollution. They could support the Mayor of London’s making the scrappage scheme more generous, so that nobody has any reason not to get rid of their non-compliant vehicle. If the costs for non-polluting vehicles came down, there would be no non-compliant vehicles polluting London. That is important because of the impact that pollution has on our communities and the people of this country.

Air pollution is the No. 1 environmental threat to public health in the UK. It contributes to up to 43,000 premature deaths every year in England. In his 2022 annual report, chief medical officer Professor Sir Chris Whitty outlined that outdoor air pollution in England

“still poses significant health threats”

to adults and children. An increasing body of evidence links air pollution to various cancers, lung and heart disease, dementia and stroke. It puts us all at greater risk of disease and shortens lives.

Furthermore, toxic air is holding back our public services and making it harder to treat other conditions. Public Health England estimates that air pollution will cost the NHS and the social care system £1.6 billion between 2017 and 2025. That rises to £5.56 billion when we include the impact of diseases for which the evidence of an association is less developed and still emerging. By 2035, that figure will reach almost £19 billion unless stronger action is taken. In addition, a report commissioned by the Clean Air Fund concluded that improving air quality could boost the UK economy by £1.6 billion each year, as a result of 3 million additional working days being worked, and a reduction in the rate of early retirement.

In 2019 in London, toxic air contributed to around 4,000 premature deaths. The greatest number of deaths attributable to air pollution were in outer London boroughs, mainly due to the higher proportion in those areas of elderly people, who are more vulnerable to the impact of air pollution. I hardly see her now, but I worked with a wonderful tenant activist in Brentford when I was a councillor. She has chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and was confined to bed about 15 years ago; she has not been able to leave her bedroom because of COPD. She has lived all her life in Brentford, which has always had very high air pollution from the coke works and the proximity to the A4 and the M4. She is just one example, but we all know people who suffer from COPD, emphysema and a whole range of other life-limiting and life-damaging conditions.

If no further action is taken to reduce air pollution, around 550,000 Londoners will develop diseases relating to poor air quality in the next 30 years. The cost of that for the NHS and social care system in London alone is estimated to be £10.4 billion by 2050. More than half a million Londoners suffer from asthma and are more vulnerable to the effects of toxic air, and more than half of those people live in outer London. Toxic air is a social justice issue. The poorest Londoners, and Londoners from ethnic minority backgrounds, who are least likely to own a car, are worst affected by toxic air. Only 5% of the lowest-income Londoners own a car, yet they are more likely to suffer from toxic air.

Half of all the children admitted to hospital due to asthma in London are from minority ethnic backgrounds. How can we ever forget the case of Ella Kissi-Debrah, the first person in the world to have air pollution listed as a cause of death on her death certificate? She was a child who grew up in a flat overlooking a busy road in south-east London. I have met Ella’s mother. I have also worked with campaign groups such as Mums for Lungs. Parents are campaigning for us to do the right thing. They support the ULEZ and they ask us—I have had two or three emails on this already this week—to oppose this Bill.

I want to say a little about my constituency and why this issue matters there. From one end of my constituency to the other, we are affected by heavy traffic and, therefore, high air pollution. That can be seen from the maps. We have the A4, the M4 above, and the A316, which comes in from the M3. The north and south circular meet at their westerly point in my constituency. All those roads are all hugely congested and have very polluted air. The last ULEZ boundary went through the middle of my constituency, just inside the north and south circular. There, we have St. Mary’s Catholic Primary School and William Hogarth School next door to each other, alongside the A4 in Chiswick. The pollution at those schools is incredibly high. Parents there, led by one of the fathers, Andrea Carnevali, have campaigned for years to address the issue. Their campaign has meant that the issue of air pollution has got into the public domain locally.

Through their campaigning, those parents managed to get support from the Mayor of London for a green wall along the playground side of the wall to try to catch some of the pollution. They have also worked with paint manufacturers. Remarkably, air pollution levels inside a classroom can be reduced with a particular paint. The school was donated the paint to do measurements and assessments so that everybody could see its efficacy. Sadly, it is too expensive for schools to buy, because it is so specialist, but that is the sort of thing the Government should be supporting.

Until air pollution levels drop—they are starting to drop, and I will come on to that—children who go to St Mary’s, William Hogarth and other schools in my constituency and across London will be going into classrooms, playing in playgrounds, and walking and cycling to and from school in environments that are limiting their life expectancy.

I want to pick up on two letters I received from parents this week. This is from a mother who told me about her son. He used to attend a school situated just one block from the A4 as it goes into London through Chiswick and Hammersmith. She wrote that he

“used to suffer from asthma and he used to tell us how he could breathe so much better when we were away from London.”

He has died from cancer. His mother said:

“Although his primary tumour was in his left humerus, he died from the bone cancer which had spread to his lungs and we now suspect that it had been in his lungs for quite some time.”

That is why she has asked me to oppose the Bill today. She added another thing in her note:

“When I took my son to hospital once for something unrelated, I was on a ward with him with three other children who all had breathing difficulties. When I asked the nurse about this she said they consistently have children admitted for breathing problems.”

That reminded me of my visits to schools over the years, from when I was a councillor and subsequently as an MP. A growing number of schools have to have an asthma strategy and a growing bank of drawers full of asthma inhalers, just in case. Those inhalers are used. More and more children are using asthma inhalers day in, day out so that they are able to make the most of school.

The second email is in a way more general, but it still explains from a constituent’s point of view why I will oppose the Bill today. My constituent wrote:

“As the dad of two young boys who has to expose them to pollution every single day on the school run—particularly over Kew bridge”—

over the river, but highly polluted—

“I support any and all efforts to clean up London’s air.”

The ULEZ is a strategy to protect public health. In lieu of alternative policies that could address this horrific health challenge, the ULEZ is the most effective strategy we have for London, and that is why the Mayor for London is using it. The ULEZ is highly targeted. It helps to take the most polluting vehicles off London’s roads. Vehicles that do not meet certain emissions standards and are not otherwise subject to a grace period, discount or exemption must pay the charge to travel within the city. The charge is set to disincentivise frequent trips in non-compliant vehicles that would otherwise contribute more to air pollution. It incentivises people to change their travel behaviour—for example, to use public transport more or to replace their vehicle—while allowing occasional visitors and infrequent drivers an alternative.

The London-wide expansion has already been highly effective in reducing the proportion and number of older, more polluting vehicles on London’s roads. Data from the London-wide ULEZ first month report shows a 10 percentage point increase in vehicle compliance in outer London, with 95% of vehicles seen driving in London on an average day now meeting ULEZ standards. That is up from 85% when the consultation was launched in May 2022, and means that compliance rates in outer London have nearly caught up with inner London. As has been said, any net revenue raised from ULEZ will be re-invested back into public transport, including the expansion of bus services in outer London. I am not aware of bus services that have been cut, but there is no doubt that we could always do with more bus services—more frequent services, and more night and weekend services—so that fewer people are forced to get their car out in order to get to work, visit friends and relatives, and so on.

The ULEZ has been hugely successful in central and inner London, and has led to significant benefits. Harmful NO₂ concentrations alongside roads, such as the A4 and the A316 in my constituency, are estimated to be 46% lower in central London and 21% lower in inner London than they would have been without the ULEZ. The number of schools in areas exceeding legal limits for NO₂ fell by an amazing 96%, from 455 in 2016 to just 20 in 2019.

Mums for Lungs is keen to remind us of those figures. It says that on an average day, there are 77,000 fewer unique non-compliant vehicles compared with June 2023, as well as an overall reduction of 48,000 fewer non-compliant vehicles per day within the ULEZ zone. The ULEZ has helped to reduce all harmful NOx by 46% in central London, and by 21% in inner London. Monitors in the capital showed that London enjoyed the cleanest air on record in 2023 as a result of ULEZ.

There is still a long way to go for London to meet World Health Organisation air quality guidelines, and forecasts show that all of London will continue to exceed those guidelines in 2025 and 2030 without further action. That goes back to what the Government are doing. Beyond London, it is the UK Government’s view that clean air and low-emission zones are the preferred option for improving air quality in the shortest possible time, but more must be done to incentivise the use of low and zero-emission vehicles than what the Government are doing.

We are already beginning to see the expected benefits of expanding the ULEZ, and it is estimated that 5 million more people, including the constituents of some Conservative Members, are expected to breathe cleaner air as a result of expanding ULEZ to outer London. Modelling suggests that the current ULEZ is expected to reduce PM_2.5 exhaust emissions in outer London by nearly 16%, leading to a 1.5% overall reduction in PM_2.5 emissions—those are the ones that cause severe lung disease. It will lead to a reduction of nearly 10% in nitrogen oxide emissions in outer London, and to 146,000 fewer car trips overall, which is an almost 2% reduction. As one of my colleagues said earlier, the worst place to be in terms of air pollution is inside a car, so if fewer car trips are made that should mean that fewer people are exposed to emissions inside a car as well as externally. The ULEZ is expected to save 27,000 tonnes of CO₂ emissions in outer London, so this is about not just air pollution, but climate change.

--- Later in debate ---

[John McDonnell]

The issue we have focused on today is respiratory conditions, but, like me, my hon. Friend has been working on air pollution issues around our airport. I do not know whether she will remember this, but when we looked at the matter perhaps 15 years ago, the issue we raised was the incidence of cancer—she has mentioned cancer itself. We then discovered the Chicago airport study, which linked cancer to air pollution and highlighted the significance of that for airports and the surrounding areas. We should not underestimate the impact that ULEZ could have, not only on overcoming respiratory problems, but on reducing cancer incidence in areas such as ours. A number of our key campaigners in the area have suffered from cancer and we consider that it is linked to the air pollution around the airport.

[Ruth Cadbury]

I thank my right hon. Friend for that. I have worked with him for many years on issues relating to Heathrow. We cannot separate the issues of vehicle congestion and air pollution from the issues around Heathrow airport, which does not do enough to incentivise its staff and its passengers to come to the airport by means other than car.

I said that I would cover the issue of scrappage. Having continued to listen to the concerns of Londoners, the Mayor and TfL expanded the scrappage scheme to provide support for more Londoners. The Mayor is providing a £210 million funding pot for the scrappage scheme to support all Londoners with an eligible car or motorcycle, as well as charities, sole traders and small businesses. It is the most generous scrappage scheme ever seen in the UK. As part of the scheme, any London resident with an eligible non-compliant car can apply for a grant of up to £2,000 to scrap it. Neighbours of mine have a nice little runaround car that cost £2,000 and is compliant, so anyone who says that it is not possible to buy a compliant car for that kind of money has not tried to do it.

Other more extended benefits are available. For example, disabled people who need to scrap or retrofit a non-compliant wheelchair-accessible car can apply for grants of up to £10,000 to scrap or £6,000 to retrofit. Charities, sole traders and businesses with fewer than 50 employees that are registered in London can apply for a grant of £7,000 to scrap a van, £9,000 to scrap a minibus, or £6,000 to retrofit certain vans or minibuses. They can also apply to scrap and replace a van or minibus with a fully electric vehicle, for which the grants are £9,500 and £11,500 respectively. Eligible organisations can scrap or retrofit up to three vehicles. As of 15 March 2024, applicants to the ULEZ scrappage scheme can donate their non-ULEZ compliant vehicle to support humanitarian and medical needs in Ukraine, in return for the same level of grant payment that is available to those who choose to scrap their vehicle.

The Government have provided scrappage funding for other cities, including Birmingham, Bristol, Sheffield and Portsmouth, but they have not provided similar arrangements for specific ringfenced funding for London. That is yet another sectarian attack by the Conservative Government on a Labour Mayor.

Air pollution is a health crisis, and targets to tackle it are rightfully set by central Government. Across the country, the Government have required and encouraged the introduction of clean air zones. The Bill is plainly party political point scoring, given that the Government have required and encouraged many other clean air zones across the country. This Bill is a challenge to the powers of the Mayor of London to make decisions that improve the health of Londoners—all Londoners. If successful, the Bill has the potential to do significant damage, reinforce inequities in public health and undermine the office of the Mayor of London. The Bill is an attack on devolution. The Mayor has a right to introduce measures within his powers to meet statutory targets set by central Government, but they are dictating how a democratically elected Mayor of London should run the city and that is counter to the principles of devolution. Labour is a party of devolution: we created the mayoral model in London, the Scottish Parliament, the Welsh Parliament and the Northern Ireland Assembly, and promoted local and regional decision making and funding across England. This Bill is an attack not only on devolution, but on measures to improve our environment and the health of our children and our children’s children.

We have to have solutions to the air quality crisis and the cost of living crisis, both nationally and locally. Labour is clear that the Government have a direct responsibility to work with local authorities to enable clean air zones and alternatives to them, and there needs to be a range of alternative air quality improvement methods, including re-routing traffic, land management, speed limits, better public transport and making it easier to acquire non-polluting vehicles. That responsibility should extend to helping to mitigate the impacts of any proposal that clears the strong thresholds set by the Government for a clean air zone. I do not hear about any alternatives from those on the Government Benches, so whose side are the supporters of the Bill on—continuing pollution or finding a solution to stop our children dying? I want to read out the end of the email that I received from the father I mentioned earlier:

“Pollution is too high in London, it makes us sick and long-term exposure can reduce cognitive ability.”

I am proud that London has the world’s largest clean air zone. The ULEZ is a brave and important policy which will be a historic legacy for the London Mayor.