Road User Charging Schemes

Gareth Bacon Excerpts

Monday 26th June 2023 Westminster Hall

[Theresa Villiers]

No, the hon. Lady will get her turn in a moment.

[Gareth Bacon (Orpington) (Con)]

Will my right hon. Friend give way?

[Theresa Villiers]

I am going to make some progress.

Constituents stop me in the street to tell me how much they oppose Mayor Khan’s proposal. A protest I organised, which I was expecting to attract about 10 people and be rather low key, attracted a crowd of about 60. Outer London high streets in places such as Barnet are already suffering from the big switch to online retail, accelerated by the pandemic; losing their customers from outside London could be a killer blow.

Our public services in outer London depend heavily on workers who do not live in the capital. Schools, the NHS and the police already struggle to recruit the people they need. Setting up a ULEZ pay wall around London will make that task even harder and place even greater pressure on NHS waiting times.

Many people living in areas around London will find that they cannot avoid driving into the capital to work, to care for relatives or for hospital appointments. They will have to pay, despite never having a vote in an election for the Mayor of London. That is a shocking example of taxation without representation, as my hon. Friend the Member for Dartford (Gareth Johnson) pointed out in this Chamber only a few weeks ago.

The issue is made worse by Transport for London’s unhelpful and negative approach to cross-border bus services, such as the 84 service in my constituency. The operator discontinued the route between Potters Bar and Barnet last year after concluding that it was not commercially viable. However, despite many appeals from me and others, TfL and the Mayor have not lifted a finger to get it reinstated. The Mayor promises that the ULEZ expansion will fund transport improvements, but there is no sign of them so far. The one orbital bus route that has been announced will be a wholly inadequate substitute for the millions of journeys that will be hit by the new charging scheme.

The ULEZ proposal comes on top of a host of anti-car measures. Too often, schemes such as low traffic neighbourhoods and segregated cycle lanes have worsened congestion, transferring traffic from leafier, more prosperous areas to main roads that are home to more disadvantaged communities, which may be hotspots for air pollution. When it comes to the radical schemes seen in London over recent years aimed at promoting cycling, we need to balance the interests of the small minority who cycle with those of the majority who do not, including the elderly and people with mobility impairments for whom getting on a bike is just not a viable option.

It is not acceptable that taxies are being caught up in Mayor Khan’s war on the motorist. Nearly half the licensed taxi fleet is now zero-emission capable, and within a decade, all licensed taxis are expected to be electric. Licensed taxis are a crucial part of our public transport system, and the only form of fully accessible door-to-door transport in our city. There is no justification for excluding them from Bank, Bishopsgate or Tottenham Court Road, as is currently the case. That goes against years of cross-party consensus that meant that taxis could go wherever buses could.

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[Gareth Bacon (Orpington) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Stringer. I would like to thank my hon. Friend the Member for Don Valley (Nick Fletcher) for leading the debate.

At the outset, I have to say that I fully support the sentiment of both the petitions we are discussing today, but I will primarily speak to the petition that refers to a desire to amend the GLA Act 1999 to remove the Mayor of London’s power to impose road user charges. The issue has been brought into very sharp focus by the Mayor of London’s decision late last year to move forward with the expansion of the ultra low emission zone to the Greater London boundary, a policy that I have spoken about in the House a number of times.

My Orpington constituents are part of the London Borough of Bromley, which will be impacted by the decision. My constituents are overwhelmingly opposed to the expansion of ULEZ, which they see quite rightly as a tax-grabbing scheme to fill the holes in Transport for London’s finances. Moreover, it is a tax-grabbing scheme misleadingly dressed up as an environmental measure. Despite a growing clamour and loud discontent, the Mayor is continuing with its implementation. Indeed, he has effectively made a mockery of the public consultation on his plans by ignoring the fact that it showed that over 60% of those consulted were against the scheme, including 70% of those living in outer London.

Documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act have revealed that TfL began ordering hundreds of the number plate recognition systems required for the expanded ULEZ in April 2022, a full month before the public consultation even started. Documents obtained by the London Assembly Conservative group show that the Mayor’s office, having been briefed that the vast majority of consultation responses coming in were opposed to the expansion, then attempted to influence the outcome by targeting an advertising campaign at particular groups of people who were more likely to respond favourably. There also appears to be a strong indication that City Hall attempted to suppress responses from certain individuals in order to make the outcome appear closer than it was.

It is completely clear that the Mayor was never interested in any opinion that did not concur with his own, including that of my constituents. Time and again, he has shown himself to be entirely unrepentant in his determination to impose prohibitively high extra costs on Londoners. Orpington simply does not have the public transport alternatives that exist in central London. We do not have the tube. We do not have trams. We have a bus network that is far from comprehensive and is unreliable. We have country lanes, farms and hedgerows. It is a vast place, and people need their cars to get around.

My inbox and postbag have been full of messages from people who are desperately worried because they own a non-compliant vehicle and can afford neither the daily charge nor the cost of a replacement vehicle. For some, the expansion will simply mean that they are not able to drive any more. Indeed a TfL-commissioned report by the consultancy firm Jacobs, which was mentioned by my right hon. Friend the Member for Chipping Barnet (Theresa Villiers), was published in May 2022 and warned of a disproportionate impact on low-income households due to their lesser capacity to switch to a compliant vehicle and/or to change mode.

The Labour party likes to hector everybody about the cost of living, but this scheme is by one of their own Mayors and it will hit people on low incomes the most, because they are more likely to have an older vehicle. Elderly constituents have written to me distraught about how they may no longer be able to go out and do their weekly shop or see family and friends because they cannot afford to drive their cars. They are terrified of isolation. They have survived the pandemic, but they may not survive this.

Single traders have told me that they will no longer be able to operate. Social care workers have told me that they will have to leave the profession. My local higher education college has told me that the impact on large numbers of their staff will be devastating. I must agree with small business owners, who are rightfully complaining that after the pandemic the ULEZ charge is a crippling additional cost they do not need at this time. Restaurants and venues within the ULEZ will see a reduction in footfall. The Mayor clearly fails to grasp that a painter and decorator or a builder or tree surgeon cannot take their tools up and down escalators and compete for space on public transport.

To add insult to injury, the scheme may close businesses in Orpington. One of my constituents recently told me that he will have to give up his business, because if he is forced to buy a new vehicle or pay £12.50 every day, it will no longer be viable. That is the reality of the situation—businesses closed, family visits severely restricted and workers worse off. All of that is about to be imposed by the Mayor of London at a time when the cost of living is increasing. That arrogance and total disregard for the great difficulties that will be imposed on less affluent people are driving my constituents to despair, and the scheme is entirely unnecessary.

[Elliot Colburn]

My hon. Friend is making an excellent speech. Does he share my surprise that, when challenged in the London Assembly on the issue, a Labour member responded to those worried about the cost of living by saying, “Go and buy a new car; it will only cost £3,000.”?

[Gareth Bacon]

I would like to say that I am surprised by that answer, but I am afraid that I am not. It comprehensively shows the lack of grip from some of the people making the decisions that we are talking about. I remind Members present that every single member of the Labour group on the London Assembly voted in favour of this when they had the opportunity to stop it, as did every member of the Liberal Democrats group and every member of the Green group.

The Mayor’s own independently produced “London-wide ULEZ Integrated Impact Assessment” states:

“The Proposed Scheme is estimated to have a minor (NO₂) to negligible (PM_2.5)…impact on exposure to air pollution”.

Asthma UK ranks Bromley and Havering as the second and first boroughs, respectively, in terms of the cleanest air quality in the capital, so why should my constituents have the ULEZ imposed on them in this way? Improving air quality sounds great on paper and might earn the Mayor of London brownie points from rich Labour donors who finance anti-democratic pressure groups such as Just Stop Oil, but the reality is that the scheme will change little in terms of air quality.

Devolution, as personified in the form of elected metro Mayors, has created a form of electoral dictatorship in certain regions of the country. Most metro Mayors have almost no elected scrutiny of their actions and no local checks on their power. The London Assembly has done valuable work in scrutinising the Mayor, but in practice it is a toothless tiger in terms of its ability to check his power. The expanded ULEZ will do little to improve air quality, but it is likely to go ahead because the Mayor and local authorities have the power to create clean air zones even if they are flawed. That power needs urgent review.

Section 143 of the GLA Act 1999 appears to offer hope to my constituents, because on the face of it the section gives the Secretary of State for Transport the power to direct the Mayor of London with regard to his transport strategy under certain conditions. However, I am aware that Department for Transport lawyers apparently see that as a grey area. So let us put the issue beyond doubt and do the right thing: let us agree with the petitioners and seek to remove the power of Mayors and local authorities to unilaterally impose these charges.

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[Gareth Johnson]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. That is why it has been so good that Kentish MPs have been working with our distant cousins from across the border in the smoky town. These are hon. Friends who, over this issue, would quite like to be in Kent—but we will not let them.

It is important that we make the point about the penalty notices. Income from penalty notices has been factored in by the Mayor of London in the overall budgeting for this. The Mayor relies on people forgetting to pay, or not knowing that they have to pay. That is part of the impact that the Mayor is placing on us.

As has been said a few times in this debate, the charging scheme is not about air quality. That is the façade that has been used. In Dartford we have poor air quality. We suffer from the impacts of westerly winds and the Dartford crossing, and as a consequence we have poor air quality. Therefore, if it was about air quality, I would be one of the first people to be sympathetic, but it is not about that. If it was about air quality, Sadiq Khan would be banning vehicles from London. He does not want to ban them; he just wants to make money out of them—and he needs to make a certain amount.

We know that the London underground is far more polluted than the air on the streets, yet the policy will force more people to use the underground and so suffer a bigger impact because of the quality of the air they will be breathing. The scheme has absolutely nothing to do with air quality. At the moment, the Mayor of London is doing away with our daily travel cards, which again pushes more people on to the London underground, where the air quality is far worse.

[Gareth Bacon]

At recent public meetings, the Mayor of London equated the expansion of the ultra low emission zone to the banning of smoking in pubs. Would my hon. Friend agree that the banning of smoking in pubs was not subject to a £12.50 charge—as if someone paying £12.50 would not be polluting the air in the pub while smoking? The comparison between the two is completely and utterly bonkers.

[Gareth Johnson]

Absolutely. It is also fair to say that in any consultations that took place at the time, the majority of people were in favour of banning smoking in pubs. Even if we accept wholeheartedly what the Mayor of London has said about the consultation process, we know that a majority of people do not support the ULEZ expansion. It was a sham consultation. What is the point in having a consultation and totally ignoring its outcome? There are lots of rumours that the cameras were bought before it took place, and that therefore there was never any chance of Sadiq Khan rolling back on the policy. He was hellbent on expanding the ULEZ no matter what anybody said, and no matter what the outcome.

What we have not heard is Sadiq Khan saying that he will not move the goalposts. I firmly believe that he has in mind the fact that he has to earn a certain amount of money to pay for the infrastructure that he will put in—£250 million, for a start—and to fill the black hole in his finances. If too many people switch to compliant vehicles, he will move the goalposts, so the next category of vehicles will no longer be ULEZ compliant, until all petrol and diesel cars are not compliant and are therefore charged. The Mayor of London has not ruled that out, and I firmly believe that it will happen. This is not the end, but the beginning.

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[Elliot Colburn]

I have long been opposed to ULEZ.

[Gareth Bacon]

Does my hon. Friend acknowledge that the inner London ultra low emission zone is contained in the congestion charging zone, which has a massive surplus of public transport alternatives and demonstrably worse and less clean air than outer London? That is why my hon. Friend the Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Nickie Aiken) was in favour of it while she was leader of Westminster City Council and why it was supported when it was initially consulted on under the mayoralty of Boris Johnson by the GLA Conservative group.

Outer London is completely different. It does not suffer from the same bad air or have the public transport alternatives. That may help the hon. Member for Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough (Gill Furniss) to understand why there is a very big difference between the inner London ultra low emission zone and the outer London ultra low emission zone proposed by the Mayor.

[Elliot Colburn]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend. Characteristically, and as a former member of the London Assembly, he is absolutely right. Indeed, I imagine that our hon. Friend the Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Nickie Aiken) may have been less supportive at the time if she had known that, only a few years later, the Mayor would be looking to cut the historic No. 11 bus route out of central London and her constituency.

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[Mr Holden]

There is absolutely no doubt that my hon. Friend is absolutely right. The owner of a small business who literally carries the tools of their trade in the back of their van does not have other options. Even if people are not the owners of small businesses but are just commuting to work in a car or van, the Mayor has now hit them on the other side with a day travel card, as my hon. Friend the Member for Dartford (Gareth Johnson) said. In addition to those extra £50 million of costs, they are being told to use public transport and then told to pay an absolutely huge amount more for it, particularly if they are coming from outside the Greater London area. Again, that is a change that hon. Members have been reflecting on today. It means that the people affected by the change pay more but still do not have any say over the person responsible. That is part of the democratic deficit argument that Members have talked about.

I need to move on to local government powers around air quality. Powers enabling local authorities to introduce road schemes that charge users are of long standing. They can be used by local authorities to deliver what they want in their areas. There are no plans to revoke these powers, which are in the Transport Act 2000. They provide local authorities with an important tool. It is for local authorities to make decisions and to be accountable for those decisions.

We require local authorities to consult on these schemes. The Prime Minister has spoken at the Dispatch Box—I think it was in response to a question from one of the hon. Members here today; it might have been my hon. Friend the Member for Orpington (Gareth Bacon)—on the consultation around the ULEZ scheme. The Prime Minister thought it would be a sensible idea for the Mayor of London to think again and I tend to agree with him. This scheme needs to be thought about again, more broadly.

These powers have been used by some local authorities in various areas, but what I would say to all local authorities across the country is that if they want to take people with them, they should not try to drive people out of using cars; they should provide better quality alternatives. It is particularly sad to see the Mayor of London reducing some bus routes, particularly historical bus routes, and not allowing that alternative when people really need it. I have pledged before to my right hon. Friend the Member for Chipping Barnet (Theresa Villiers) that I will speak to the transport commissioner in London about the No. 84 bus. I will see the commissioner in the next few weeks, and I will do so again.

The Government recognise the need to support a range of solutions across the board for individuals and businesses affected by measures to tackle air pollution. That is why we have already awarded £402 million through the clean air fund to some of the local authorities that face some of the most pernicious negative impacts of air quality that are also difficult to mitigate.

Under the Greater London Authority Act 1999, transport in London is devolved to the Mayor and Transport for London. It is the Mayor’s responsibility to manage and oversee the transport network. This includes the power to create, or vary, road schemes that charge users, which is why the petitioners drafted their petition in the way that they did. It is up to the Mayor to determine and justify what he is doing.

The mayoralty in London has previously used those powers to introduce the congestion zone, the low emission zone and the current smaller ULEZ in central London. When the Mayor brought forward his transport strategy, which was voted on, it could have been rejected by the members of the GLA, but instead it was supported by every party in the GLA apart from the Conservatives. That is where the Mayor gets his ability to do this from.

[Gareth Bacon]

The GLA Act gives the London Assembly the power to accept or veto mayoral strategies, including the transport strategy, but only on the proviso that two thirds of elected members of the GLA agree on an alternative, which means that of the 25-member GLA, 17 would have to agree on the alternative. The electoral system for the London Assembly guarantees that no one party will be able to achieve that; Labour votes would have been required to achieve that. That is why the Mayor’s budget has never been amended and why no strategies have ever been amended. Does the Minister agree that that is precisely why the petitioners have put forward this petition today? The London Assembly does not have the effective power to veto the Mayor’s transport strategy, which is why the petitioners are calling on the Government to step in and do that.

[Mr Holden]

I thank my hon. Friend for making that point. What is particularly interesting today about Labour Members is how few of them are here. In fact, no Labour Back Bencher is here. I would be really interested to know why that is the case. It is clear to me that a few of them, secretly and in the background, would go against their party leader, the Leader of the Opposition, who is fully behind Mayor Khan’s plan for the massive expansion of the ULEZ. I think a few of them would like to speak up in that way.

I understand the point that my hon. Friend makes and I will address it directly at the end of my remarks, if I may, but I think it is very important that we also say to people, “If you want change, then rather than trying to change the rules or the legislation in this place, you can change the person in charge of implementing them.” That is the most important message that we can send today, and a really important way of sending that message in the very near future is to deliver it in Uxbridge in the next few weeks—sorry, Mrs Murray, I digressed slightly there.

The mayoralty in London has previously used the GLA Act to introduce various measures, and there has been a significant reduction in nitrous oxide as well as particulates and other pollutants over the last few years, but that is due to improvements in engines as well as to other factors. The Mayor of London needs no agreement from the Government or the London boroughs to pursue his proposed expansion of the ULEZ under the current law, and although the current Mayor notified the Department for Transport of his intention to expand the ULEZ, he is not obliged by the legislation to consult the Department. At the last mayoral election, in 2021, the Mayor stood on a manifesto that included a pledge to expand the ULEZ to the boundary of the North and South Circular Roads; his manifesto did not say that the ULEZ would be expanded to the boundary of Greater London. To implement his preferred option of expanding the ULEZ, the Mayor had to revise his transport strategy, and this was subject to a consultation and a vote in the London Assembly.

The car is an important, and often the only, way for people to get around in their daily lives; the same is true of small vans. These vehicles are particularly needed for people who have limited mobility—another element to this issue that we all need to consider at the moment. People depend on their vehicles for food, for their health, for their livelihoods and to visit friends and family. They should be given a choice of how they travel. Imposing obstacles and doing so during a cost of living crisis is quite a blow to those who need their cars, who have no real alternative and whose choice is being removed. The Mayor could have proposed other, less intrusive measures to improve air quality in the capital, but he did not; instead, he and has chosen to expand the ULEZ. That is his decision, and he has the power to do it under the current law.

Before I conclude my remarks, I want to touch on the rest of the country, because my hon. Friend the Member for Bury North also raised important points. One area where we do recognise an emerging inconsistency is in the powers of local authorities to look at charging systems where the approach taken in London differs from those outside the capital. The judicial review of the Mayor’s proposal is being heard in July. At the moment, I cannot speak in much greater detail about that, aside from saying that the case will be heard on four grounds—it was two previously, before the recent appeal—including how the Mayor conducted his consultation, and his scrappage scheme. Clearly, it would not be proper to comment on that, but we have seen the difficulty that the inconsistency in local authority powers can create, with four London borough councils, alongside Surrey County Council, challenging the decision. It is important to recognise that. As many hon. Members have said, constituents being impacted without their having the ability to change the Mayor is a real issue.

Outside London, combined authorities have their own locally agreed decision-making processes. For road schemes that charge users, powers are typically held by combined and local authorities, and some degree of local authority agreement is required to introduce schemes. That is separate and different from the situation in Greater London. Two decades on from the re-establishment of the mayoralty of London, it is right that the Government take stock of how London’s devolution settlement is operating in practice, which is why the Government are committed to reviewing the London devolution settlement as part of the English devolution accountability framework more broadly.

I am not in a position today to announce any change to the Government’s position on this issue—it is more proper for Ministers in other Departments to fully reflect on it—but I recognise the strength of feeling not only of hon. Members present but of the petitioners. I commit to raising the concerns expressed during the debate with ministerial colleagues.