Greater London Low Emission Zone Charging (Amendment) Bill

David Evennett Excerpts

Friday 22nd March 2024 Commons Chamber

[Gareth Johnson (Dartford) (Con)]

I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.

The Bill would overturn the expansion of the ULEZ scheme, simply because it is a cruel, cruel form of taxation. It is particularly cruel to the poorest in society, hitting heavily those people who have old motor vehicles that they cannot afford to upgrade, with or without a scrappage scheme. It is also very unfair on business owners—especially those in outer London, who lose out on business that they would otherwise have secured from people travelling in from neighbouring counties to purchase their goods—and on people who live outside London, who have no say in who the London Mayor is.

The border between London and the home counties is not neat. People in my constituency live in Kent, but some of them have to go into London just to exit their road. The border straddles some roads. It is a border that cannot be avoided, and the Mayor of London knows that.

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

My hon. Friend and parliamentary neighbour is making an impressive start. He and I share roads in Crayford and Dartford where people living on different sides of the road pay different taxes. Some people, such as gardeners and plumbers, travel regularly from Dartford to Bexleyheath and Crayford for work, and they cannot afford this. It is so unfair, especially as it was not in the Mayor’s manifesto when he was last elected.

[Gareth Johnson]

That is an absolutely valid point, but I would go further. About 50% of police officers in the Metropolitan police area live outside London and commute in, and the percentage for all emergency workers is probably about the same. These are the people who Londoners rely on the most—they are vital to Londoners—but if their vehicles are not ULEZ-compliant, they are hit with £12.50 every single time they go to work. Even worse, those doing night shifts have to pay on the way in and on the way out again, because at 3 am there might be no public transport. For emergency workers to be hit with £25 just for doing a night shift is totally and utterly wrong.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lilian Greenwood]

My hon. Friend is exactly right. I will come on to address how we best tackle the issue of air pollution and, at the same time, protect those who are impacted by this charge.

From 21 August last year, every Londoner with a non-compliant vehicle became eligible for a £2,000 grant to assist them in replacing their vehicle. I understand why people have said that £2,000 is not enough, but that has been provided despite central Government giving no financial support to the Mayor of London for it. Of course, if the Government are concerned about the impact—[Interruption.] If they are concerned about the impact of their clean air charging zones, they could have provided additional assistance—

[Sir David Evennett]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Lilian Greenwood]

No, I am not giving way at the moment.

As I was saying, the Government could have provided additional financial support to the Mayor of London so that that grant could have been increased, but they chose not to so.

I am proud that Labour is the party of devolution. [Interruption.] It was Labour that created the mayoral model in London, and created the Scottish Parliament, the Welsh Assembly and the Northern Ireland Assembly, as well as always having—

--- Later in debate ---

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

Let me begin by congratulating my neighbour, my hon. Friend the Member for Dartford (Gareth Johnson), on his Bill, which I was delighted to sponsor. I am delighted to participate in this debate and to congratulate him also on his excellent, informative and constructive speech.

I was rather disappointed in the hon. Member for Nottingham South (Lilian Greenwood), for whom I have a lot of respect, because she did not say much about ULEZ. She took us on a tour of Nottingham and told us about other parts of Labour party policy, but she showed a total misunderstanding of—or no understanding of—outer London. [Interruption.] She can barrack me all she likes, but she never had a view on outer London. She also made a statement that was fundamentally untrue, in saying that this Government had not bailed out the Mayor of London. Transport for London has been bailed out so many times in the past few years, but she did not say that. She glossed over the management of TfL. She also did not come up with any facts or figures to show that ULEZ has reduced the level of pollution in inner London. We are still seeing huge levels of pollution in inner London, even on the underground, which came to our attention last year—

[Lilian Greenwood]

rose—

[Sir David Evennett]

The hon. Lady would not give way to me, so I am certainly not going to give way to her. I have also not had the opportunity to start my speech. I know that Opposition Members just want to delay everybody and everything, but I want to speak for my borough of Bexley. We had a long tour about Nottingham, but ULEZ affects my borough and my constituency, not hers in Nottingham, so I think I should have a few minutes to speak. [Interruption.] The hon. Member for Walthamstow (Stella Creasy) did not get up and ask to intervene, but the others did.

The expansion of ULEZ affects my area and the surrounding areas very badly. It blindly copies the approach taken in central and inner London without properly assessing the implications for outer London or the neighbouring areas. The expansion has caused a range of negative social, financial and economic impacts for those who can least afford it. Perhaps this is not the case for the hon. Member for Eltham (Clive Efford), for whom I have a lot of respect, but we are inundated with people in my borough, some of whom support his party, who think it is unfair for ULEZ to come to Bexley when Bexley has good air quality, as does Bromley. I am surprised at what he says; I have no doubt that it is correct, as he as a good friend of mine and an honourable man, but I do not believe that there have not been people in Eltham who have said that this is unfair to those who are less well off.

[Clive Efford]

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for giving way. I want to clarify that I did not say that I have not had any people say that. What I said was that far more people write to me about the state of our roads, which the Government have caused by starving local authorities of investment.

[Sir David Evennett]

Of course, recently local authorities have been given more money by the Government. I would say to the hon. Member that that is the fault of Greenwich council, not the Government.

[Mr French]

My right hon. Friend rightly points out that the local council is responsible for the roads. What the hon. Member for Eltham (Clive Efford) failed to point out is that the Royal Borough of Greenwich has been given over £7.8 million by the Government through the recent announcement of the potholes fund.

[Sir David Evennett]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend and constituency neighbour.

The ULEZ extension is a disastrous policy and another example of the London Labour Mayor filling the black hole in his finances. This Mayor is no friend of motorists. We have already had 20 mph speed limits, 24/7 bus lanes and the congestion charge on people who need to use their car. My constituents are very angry about this.

My borough is one of the two in London without the tube, the docklands light railway or trams. The Mayor of London has never even looked at extending any of those. We only have Southeastern rail and buses as our public transport. It is all very well to say that we should go on the tube, but we do not have it. Like many people, we have to use a car to get about in our area. The lack of public transport—and the fact that a lot of what we have is unreliable—has major implications for my constituents and residents of the borough of Bexley.

We are heavily reliant on our cars for various purposes. We have one of the highest car ownership rates and the lowest sustainable modal share rate in London. Over the last decade, car and van registrations have outstripped population growth. These are not figures we want to have. We hear all these wonderful things that the Mayor of London is doing, but in our area he has done very little. I made the point in an intervention on my hon. Friend the Member for Dartford that the Mayor had no mandate for this extension. It is all very well the hon. Member for Nottingham South talking about a mandate, but from his last manifesto he had no mandate for this policy. We could have debated it then. The hon. Lady was high on the mandates, but the manifesto did not mention it at all.

I believe that the consultation was rather a sham. Two thirds of people objected to the ULEZ, and they did so for many and various reasons. We have heard from businesses, and we have heard my hon. Friend the Member for Dartford talk about his constituent who has to go and visit a relative in Bexley on a regular basis, and who now has to pay an extra £12.50 every time. The Labour party says that it cares about the less well-off and those who are disadvantaged, as I do passionately. I believe in social mobility and in giving people the chance to maximise their opportunities in life, and I have to say that the ULEZ is a tax on those who cannot afford to get around. In Bexley, we do not have the public transport services that other London boroughs have.

The congestion charge has tripled in the last few years, and the fine for non-payment has increased from £160 to £180—more than two days’ pay for minimum wage earners. It is reduced to £90 if paid within two weeks, but that is still more than a day’s pay. This is very unsatisfactory for the less well-off in the outer boroughs of London, as well as for businesses, key workers, pensioners and families. It is no good the Labour party always blaming somebody else, because the ULEZ was introduced by the Mayor of London. The poorest in my borough are the ones who do not have the ability to change their cars, and giving them £2,000 to do so is a bit of an insult. I am really disappointed.

[Stella Creasy]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for giving way. If he were to persuade the Government to provide additional support for scrappage, as they have done for other clean air zones in the country, to people in the outer boroughs of London, whom he and I represent, he would have my support, but does he understand my concern? Our constituents can have their say on this matter at the London mayoral elections in just six weeks’ time. Why is he seeking to usurp his own candidate and her ability to address this issue? Does he have such little confidence that he feels that national legislation is needed to undermine his own candidate, or is it really a sign that he thinks London recognises that the best option is Sadiq Khan?

[Sir David Evennett]

I have a lot of respect for the hon. Lady, and I know her constituency very well. I grew up in Woodford, so I know the area. [Interruption.] I know that is not in her constituency, but my wife and son were born in Walthamstow. The hon. Lady should let me finish before she interjects. I know that part of the world well, and I respect her tremendously for the work that she does locally. What I would say to her is that this is a conversation that should have been had before the Mayor implemented the policy. We could have then had meetings with the Government and Members representing outer London constituencies, and had a discussion about how we could go forward constructively.

The Mayor did not allow for that. He just had an artificial consultation and did not take any notice of what people thought, and we did not have a discussion. We should have had it beforehand. The hon. Lady says that these matters should be discussed with the Government and others, but we did not have that discussion. This Government have bailed out the Mayor of London so much, which the Opposition do not like to admit. I am a big supporter of Susan Hall, and I very much hope that she will win on 2 May.

It is important to note that a lot of care workers have been in touch with me. Some of them work in the constituency of the hon. Member for Eltham, and they are very cross that they have to pay £12.50. It is more difficult to get night staff, who have to pay £25. Surely that cannot be right. Surely it must be looked at again by the Mayor of London, because these are key workers in our area. They do a magnificent job, and I am always supportive of them.

I will come to a conclusion, because I do not want to take half an hour and not let other people participate in the debate. I am really disappointed that the Opposition Members who have spoken so far have tried to make this a general discussion about clean air zones across the country. We are looking at London. Unfortunately, we no longer have the debates we always used to—a debate on London issues on a Thursday. That is when we could discuss London issues, not Nottingham or national issues, however important they might be, and air quality is very important. If we are going to do that, as I said to the hon. Member for Nottingham South, let us have the figures for the improvements in inner London and the pollution that is still on the tube after years of the charge being in place in the centre of London.

[Stella Creasy]

Will the right hon. Member give way?

[Sir David Evennett]

No, I am going to conclude because I want other people to have a chance. If people take half an hour, it is not fair on others who want to speak, whatever they want to say. I thank my hon. Friend the Minister who will respond to the debate, and I am particularly supportive of the Secretary of State for Transport, who is doing a brilliant job in the Department. He announced today that the Government will certainly be supporting this Bill.

In conclusion—because I want other people to have the chance to speak—the ULEZ extension was hurried in without proper discussion and consultation, and without thought of the consequences, and my constituents are suffering because of it.