Oral Answers to Questions

David Simmonds Excerpts

Thursday 29th April 2021 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Let’s get beyond next Thursday. Then it will be easier for all of us. [Laughter.]

[David Simmonds (Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner) (Con)]

Whether his Department plans to review the Greater London boundary charge proposed by the Mayor of London.

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

Whether his Department plans to review the Greater London boundary charge proposed by the Mayor of London.

[The Secretary of State for Transport (Grant Shapps)]

The Government do not support a boundary charge. The Mayor of London cannot expect non-Londoners to clean up his mismanagement of Transport for London finances.

[David Simmonds [V]]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that this is precisely not the fresh start that TfL or London as a whole needs to see? The cost of the Mayor’s financial mismanagement should not be passed on to my constituents and other Londoners at precisely the time when we are trying to kickstart our economy after covid. Does he agree that this measure, if implemented, would be damaging particularly for high streets in outer London boroughs, and especially for the disabled and those who rely on their cars for personal reasons?

[Grant Shapps]

That is absolutely right. Let us be fair to the Mayor of London. No one could have predicted the coronavirus. This Government have generously backed TfL with more than £3 billion of support so far, but it is because of the Mayor’s mismanagement of that organisation, with years of being woefully unprepared, that he was not ready when this economic shock came. If London wants a real fresh start for TfL and does not want this boundary tax, it should consider voting for Shaun Bailey on 6 May.