Outer London Congestion Charge

Bob Blackman Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd March 2021 Westminster Hall

[Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con) [V]]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Rees. I join others in congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for Dartford (Gareth Johnson) on initiating a much-needed debate on the proposed outer London tax. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Orpington (Gareth Bacon) on laying out London MPs’ concerns about the impact of any proposed tax being imposed in such a way.

We should be clear about why the tax is being proposed. It is not to clean up the air in London or to make travelling around London any easier—far from it. It has come as a direct result of the Mayor of London’s failure to control TfL’s spending and to balance its books. It is fair to say that TfL’s finances have of course dropped as a result of covid. When TfL’s finances are dependent on fares income, which has fallen by 90%, gaps emerge. It is also fair that the Government have provided grants to enable TfL to continue during the pandemic. As we come out of the pandemic, we will then have to look at what happens going forward.

I and most of my constituents live on the outskirts of London, and we have enjoyed a position whereby waves of immigration have taken place from inner London, to the suburbs and beyond, so families are stretched out across the south-east of England. The reality is that those families want to come together, and not only for family celebrations but for jobs, schooling and other opportunities to get together, and equally for business.

The harsh reality is that over the past few years, businesses in the outer London areas have tended to migrate outside Greater London and set up around the M25. Those businesses have already migrated. If an outer London tax were to be introduced on crossing the Greater London area boundary, the impact would be to encourage even more businesses currently based in outer London to transfer out of London completely. That would have a knock-on effect on business rates income, where business rates continue, and on the number of people coming into London in any case to work. So clearly that would have an impact.

There is another impact. I have Stanmore station in my constituency, which is the terminus of the Jubilee line, and more than 350 vehicles from all over the area use the station car park on a daily basis. Drivers from Bushey, Radlett and other parts of outer London start their journeys into central London from the station. As we know, during the pandemic the view has been that people should work from home where possible, and I predict that in future more people will work from home more often. Preventing people driving to the terminus of the tube network will reduce TfL’s finances still further as we emerge from the pandemic. It is a short-sighted approach. There are, of course, termini outside the Greater London area. The likelihood is that people will drive to those areas in order to get on the tube network and get into central London if they have to, so this is a self-defeating proposition.

We also have those who come to celebrate with their relatives and their religious communities, for example at festival times. They would all be disadvantaged—charged —for the privilege of driving their car into the outskirts of London. All in all, this is a bad idea and one that needs to be roundly defeated.

Of course, the suggestion is that the Mayor of London would love to have the vehicle excise duty retained in London. Just imagine if the west midlands, the north-west of England or any other part of the country said the same thing. Would we then have taxes for London drivers driving outside London, and taxes for those driving into London? It would eventually end up as a cash cow for local authorities. It would not advantage anyone in relation to improving air quality or connectivity.

It is a good idea to have this debate and I hope that the proposal will be dismissed. I hope that the Minister will make it clear in her response that the Government will not allow this tax to be introduced under any circumstances.