Expansion of the Ultra Low Emission Zone

Gareth Bacon Excerpts

Tuesday 20th December 2022 Westminster Hall

[Geraint Davies (Swansea West) (Lab/Co-op)]

I rise as chair of the all-party parliamentary group on air pollution —I am of course the Member of Parliament for Swansea West, but I was formerly the leader of Croydon Council and an MP for Croydon—to support the ultra low emission zone. I am horrified to see so many outer London Conservatives gambling with people’s lives for their own political survival. We are 70 years on from the great London smog, yet 4,000 people in London are dying prematurely, 11 every day, from air pollution. As leader of Croydon Council, I introduced the Tramlink, 26 km of light rail. When I was in Croydon, I had to regularly take my oldest daughter to Mayday Hospital with asthma attacks because of air pollution. Now, in Swansea, my children have not had to go to hospital.

[Gareth Bacon (Orpington) (Con)]

Is the hon. Gentleman familiar with the report produced by Jacobs entitled “ULEZ Scheme Integrated Impact Assessment”? If he is, how does he square his comments about Conservative Members from outer London not caring about people dying of air pollution with statements in that report such as this?

“The Proposed Scheme is estimated to have a minor (NO₂) to negligible (PM_2.5) beneficial impact on exposure to air pollution and achieving WHO Interim Targets across Greater London.”

[Geraint Davies]

I am glad the hon. Gentleman mentioned that, because the expectation is that the expansion of the ULEZ will reduce PM_2.5 in outer London by 16%. He should know, but I am sure he does not, that studies at Harvard University and a Max Planck Institute found that covid deaths increased by between 8% and 12% when there was a marginal increase in air pollution from PM_2.5—an increase much less significant than the fall that I mentioned. That is particularly relevant to poorer, more polluted areas and more diverse communities. We are talking here about life and death.

We know from studies done that there will be a massive reduction in PM_2.5 and Nox as a result of the expansion. Indeed, there will be a major contribution towards mitigating climate change. The scheme already reduces carbon dioxide emissions by 12,300 tonnes; an expanded one will reduce it by 27,000 tonnes. We will be saving lives and saving the planet. The truth is that if we do not act, we will end up with 550,000 more people unnecessarily getting pollution-related diseases in the next 30 years, at an estimated cost of £10.4 billion. We should move forward on this. People who are neutral, such as the chief medical officer Chris Whitty, who has just released a report on air pollution, very much commend what Sadiq Khan is doing to save lives, as does the United Nations.

As a result of the ULEZ, there are 21,000 fewer vehicles in inner London and 67,000 fewer non-compliant ones—the latter figure is three times the former—so there are fewer vehicles overall. The scheme affects only 15% of vehicles—the most polluting—and £110 million has been set aside for scrappage schemes to enable conversion. The other thing to bear in mind is that the Government a year ago passed the Environment Act 2021. I wanted them to use COP26 to enforce World Health Organisation air quality standards, but instead, a year on, the Government are saying, “Why do we not try to get PM_2.5 at 10 micrograms per cubic metre by 2040?”, as opposed to 2030, which was the previous deadline. The limit prescribed by the World Health Organisation is 5 micrograms, which Europe will achieve by 2030. We could achieve that here—this is a condition of doing so—with ultra low emission zones. Instead, the Conservative position is, “No, we will not bother with that. We will play politics with this, and continue to have 3,600 children every year in London going into hospital with asthma”, as my daughter did. That is unnecessary—and despicable, because it is avoidable.

[Geraint Davies]

I am pleased to hear that the hon. Gentleman supports trams. I very much agree that we should move forward with trams across London and elsewhere. As an aside, the tram system cost us £200 million at the time. It was a public-private scheme with £100 million of private money and £100 million of public. We could get 1,000 of those schemes and integrated transport across Britain for the cost of HS2, but that is controversial and off the point.

We should certainly take people with us; the YouGov poll shows that people support the extension of the ULEZ by a ratio of 2:1. It is very easy to go round knocking on people’s doors and saying, “Do you agree with Sadiq Khan’s attempt to tax you more in this despicable way?”, but if we do a neutral, objective study through YouGov, we find that people support it by 2:1.

[Gareth Bacon]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Geraint Davies]

Yes, I will. The hon. Gentleman can carry on with more of his science.

[Gareth Bacon]

Is the hon. Gentleman aware that the figures quoted by Conservative Members come from the Mayor’s own consultation, in which 66% of people said, “No, don’t do this”? That was despite being asked a load of leading questions about air quality. Despite that, it delivered a two-thirds opposition. That was not people knocking on doors; that was the Mayor’s own consultation.

[Geraint Davies]

So that we are clear about how these consultations work, the Mayor, a devolved Administration or whatever puts out a consultation that says, “Tell us what you think”, and then groups of people campaign around it. They put in their submission and await the outcome. YouGov takes a representative sample; it found that people are in favour by 2:1. That is the answer. The hon. Gentleman should read up on how these things work, rather than spouting off about how they do not.

In a nutshell, we are talking about ensuring better public health, and ensuring that we reach World Health Organisation standards in time. This is a critical part of moving forward, because London is a sort of death spot in terms of pollution. If we do not get London right, we cannot move together as a nation. We will end up with these ridiculously unambitious targets of 10 micrograms by 2040, instead of 5 micrograms by 2030. I very much agree with what the Mayor has done; best of luck to him.

--- Later in debate ---

[Gareth Bacon (Orpington) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hosie. I, too, thank my hon. Friend the Member for Dartford (Gareth Johnson) for securing this important debate. I also thank my hon. Friend the Member for Runnymede and Weybridge (Dr Spencer), who was right that I have taken a deep interest in the ultra low emission zone expansion for some time, and that is because there are a number of big problems with the policy.

The first problem is that Sadiq Khan does not have a mandate for this policy. He claims that ULEZ expansion is essential to tackle air pollution, and we heard his briefing being faithfully read out by the hon. Members for Swansea West (Geraint Davies) and for Putney (Fleur Anderson). Given that the Mayor was re-elected to City Hall only last year, we would imagine that this policy featured prominently in his manifesto, but it did not. He went to the polls on a 100-page manifesto, and one paragraph on page 55 mentioned the ultra low emission zone, but it pertained specifically to the extension to the north and south circular in October 2021, which he had already announced. There was no mention whatever of expanding the boundary to the outer part of Greater London.

When the Mayor decided in May this year to push ahead with that expansion, the Evening Standard article that covered the announcement said:

“On Friday morning, Sadiq Khan insisted that he would not press ahead with the plans if the public overwhelmingly rejected them during the public consultation.

He said: ‘It’s a genuine consultation—as were the previous two consultations in relation to the central London Ultra-Low Emission Zone and the expansion. I hope Londoners who care about the health of their families will respond.’”

They did, in large numbers, but the Mayor initially refused to release the results of that consultation. Eventually, after public pressure, the results were released on 25 November. They revealed that 60% of respondents opposed Sadiq Khan’s ULEZ expansion to outer London. That figure increases to 68% when we include the organised responses that the hon. Member for Swansea West mentioned; 70% of outer London residents oppose the expansion and 80% of those who work in outer London were also opposed.

This policy has no mandate and no public support. It turns out that it is not about air quality, either, contrary to the propaganda read out by Opposition Members, which comes directly from the briefing sent by the Mayor of London. The document I quoted earlier is not a hatchet job, but the Mayor’s own integrated impact assessment. I gave one example, but there are many, of where it uses phrases like “negligible to minor” in terms of the impact that the expansion would have on air quality.

There is no mandate, there is no public support and it is not really about air quality, because the impact is negligible. So why is the Mayor of London so interested in ULEZ expansion, and why is he rushing it? The answer is as old as time: it is about money. This is a cash grab, pure and simple. According to Transport for London’s own figures, it expects the £12.50 charge to hit 160,000 cars and 42,000 vans per day. In monetary terms, that is about £2.5 million per day—a big cash injection into the Mayor’s coffers.

There is a question about timing. When the inner and outer ULEZs were introduced, people had years to prepare. In this case, we have nine months. The average family cannot save up to buy a car that quickly, especially when household bills are rising, and we know that they are. Small businesses and charities may be forced to replace one vehicle or even a fleet that they had banked on being able to use for many years to come.

Who will be hit? The Mayor of London does not seem to understand who will pick up the bill for his policies. It is not wealthy Londoners—it is ordinary working people, on the poorer end of the socioeconomic spectrum, who are less likely to be able to upgrade their car, and more likely to own an older vehicle. There is a myth that Mayor Khan attempts to spread around that low-income Londoners do not own cars, or drive in Greater London. That is categorically false. What is more, he knows it. The “Travel in London” report produced by TfL in 2019 shows that, by its own analysis, 50% of outer London households earning as little as £10,000 own a car. Car ownership rockets to in excess of 70% for those earning upwards of £20,000. According to TfL’s impact assessment, low-income Londoners are more likely to own non-compliant vehicles. The ULEZ expansion is not a tax on wealthy drivers, but on poorer people who simply cannot afford to buy a new vehicle.

In my constituency, we do not have tubes or trams. We have trains that go into central London and we have private vehicles. Some 83% of Orpington households own a car, meaning that a great number of my constituents could be liable to pay the charge. As we heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner (David Simmonds), many of my constituents use their car every day to go to work, to the shops and to visit family and friends. Under the Mayor’s plan, they face a potentially disastrous annual bill of £4,500.

Other Members have spoken about the impact on public services. More than half of Greater London’s police officers and firefighters and around a fifth of the workers in my local NHS trust come into Greater London from outside. Those who work in outer London and those who work in shift work are especially reliant on their cars. Someone on a night shift faces a double whammy of a £12.50 charge driving to work, and a £12.50 charge after midnight when they drive home. It could cost them £25 per shift to go and do their work.

The ULEZ expansion will also impact on businesses in outer London. Many people drive in from Kent to shop in Petts Wood in my constituency. TfL estimates that 8% have non-compliant vehicles. Rather than paying £12.50 a time, many will simply choose to shop and visit elsewhere, depriving London’s high streets of customers.

Many drivers, both in London and those who travel from outside to work, shop or visit outer boroughs, are unaware that they may face an even higher bill. We heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Dartford about the increase in the level of fines—up to £180. The Mayor has just hiked the fine from £130 to £160, and will go further from January next year, raising it to £180. If a driver crosses into Greater London, perhaps unaware of the boundary or unaware of the existence of the charge or that their vehicle is not compliant, they will unknowingly rack up a cripplingly high bill. Potentially as many as 12,000 cars and vans a day may be hit by a fine.

The RAC estimates that Transport for London could raise £260 million a year by imposing those penalties. To put that into context, Churchill Insurance estimated that the total parking fines raised by every council in the country combined would come to £250 million—£10 million lower than Transport for London would make with those penalties in the first year. TfL could in fact earn significantly more than that, because if not all drivers pay within 14 days—reducing the penalty from £180 to £90—that could raise £390 million every year.

The Mayor of London has not been a success in office. The Metropolitan police and the London Fire Brigade are both in special measures. Violent crime has reached record highs, and it has not abated. He is not on target to deliver enough affordable homes, despite what he boasted about as being the largest settlement from central Government on record. Crossrail was years late and billions of pounds over budget, with billions more lost in fares that were never raised.

[Stewart Hosie (in the Chair)]

Order. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman is about to get back on to low emission zones.

[Gareth Bacon]

Indeed I am. The point I am trying to make is that Sadiq Khan is looking for something he can point to and claim as his. Leaving aside the fact that the ultra low emission zone was not even his idea—it was conceived and the preparatory work was done under my right hon. Friend the Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Boris Johnson)—the Mayor has adopted it as his big idea. The expansion of the ultra low emission zone to outer London has no mandate or popular support. It will do almost nothing for air quality, it will be economically damaging and it will hit the poorest hardest—damaging not just those who live in outer London but millions who live outside Greater London. It is an appalling and unjust policy and it should be scrapped.