Road User Charging Schemes

David Evennett Excerpts

Monday 26th June 2023 Westminster Hall

[Theresa Villiers]

I think that cracking down on roadworks is a good idea, although I have to say that we have heard many times that lane rental is to be introduced, and somehow we all still seem to get caught in those traffic jams. My right hon. Friend makes some valid points.

[Sir David Evennett (Bexleyheath and Crayford) (Con)]

I am listening with great interest to my right hon. Friend, who is making a powerful case. Of course, the reason for this ULEZ is tax raising, not air pollution control, for which it has been proved conclusively not to work. In places such as Bexley, where we have good air quality, it is just to get money into the Mayor of London’s coffers.

[Theresa Villiers]

Many of my constituents agree with my right hon. Friend. It feels as if the suburbs are up in arms. They absolutely distrust the motivation behind the scheme. Other people who are concerned about ULEZ might be those with older vehicles, which they might have maintained carefully over many years, perhaps when Gordon Brown was telling us that we all ought to go to diesel to reduce emissions.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir David Evennett (Bexleyheath and Crayford) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship today, Mr Stringer. I will just make a brief speech on behalf of my constituents in Bexleyheath and Crayford.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Don Valley (Nick Fletcher) on securing this debate and on his comprehensive leadership of it. I also congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Chipping Barnet (Theresa Villiers) on her comprehensive, passionate and interesting speech against the ULEZ scheme and what is happening with it. I do not want to waste everyone’s time by repeating her comments, but I totally endorse them. My hon. Friend the Member for Orpington (Gareth Bacon) also made a passionate speech. He and I have been friends for a long time, we are in neighbouring boroughs and we have similar situations.

However, the most important thing that I would like to say is that people in Bexley in particular need their cars. We do not have an underground system. We have a very limited, east-west Network Rail and Southeastern train service, which means that if people want to visit others, they need a car. I believe this Mayor is anti-car; he wants to stop cars everywhere.

I have a tremendous regard for the Minister. He knows how passionate I am about cars. Motorists are already taxed an awful lot—some would say far too much—and the ULEZ is an additional burden on people who can least afford to change their cars. In my part of south-east London, the borough of Bexley, businesses—particularly small businesses, as my hon. Friend the Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Elliot Colburn) highlighted—need their vehicles to carry out their work as plumbers and electricians. We have brilliant care homes in the London borough of Bexley, and care workers do a fantastic job. They are going to be clobbered. They are low paid, so the ULEZ is a charge that will be detrimental to them and their families.

It is a shame that the Mayor of London wants to take this approach, which was not in his manifesto. We do not expect outer London to be treated the same as inner London. My hon. Friend the Member for Dartford (Gareth Johnson) made a powerful speech about pollution on the underground. Bexley is one of the greenest boroughs, with more open spaces than nearly any other borough in Greater London, and our air quality is good. Of course we want to improve air quality everywhere, for health reasons, but to attack the outer London boroughs in the way that the Mayor wishes is a disaster, unfair and undemocratic.

We had an opportunity to have a consultation, but it was a sham consultation. It was not effective, it was not publicised and the results are highly suspect. My view is that the respondents in my borough and constituency are overwhelmingly against the ULEZ. Whatever people’s political views are in Bexleyheath and Crayford, they are against the policy for practical and financial reasons, yet the Mayor is going to proceed with it. It is undemocratic, and I have huge disregard for his approach of not listening to facts and comments. In a democracy, we all have to listen—that is what it is all about—so I am really disappointed that he will not delay the implementation of the scheme so that we can have another look at it, because we in my part of London believe that it is the wrong policy at the wrong time, particularly given the cost of living situation and because we do not have the transport network that we need in outer London. People on low incomes who are doing fantastic caring jobs will be taxed disproportionately, because they need their car for the unsocial hours that they have to work—whether it is a night shift, late shift, early shift or whatever—and there is no public transport to get them back and forth between home and their workplace.

This has been a good debate, because it has been comprehensive on the Conservative side. Different views have been put together, with one conclusion: the ULEZ must be stopped, and it must be scrapped. The empty Labour Benches say it all, because a lot of Labour people in my constituency are fundamentally against the policy. Labour Members have not spoken up and joined us, which is a great pity. Of course we want to do all we possibly can to stop pollution, but this is the wrong policy at the wrong time, and it is attacking all the wrong people.