Greater London Low Emission Zone Charging (Amendment) Bill

Gareth Johnson 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.

[Mr Louie French (Old Bexley and Sidcup) (Con)]

My hon. Friend is making a great speech. As he knows, he has my full support. Does he agree that today we will see whose side Labour Members are on? Are they going to talk the Bill out, or are they going to back those emergency service workers and others in Bexley who want to be rid of ULEZ?

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

I am following the hon. Gentleman’s arguments with interest. In Bristol we have experienced the first year of a clean air zone, which was actually imposed on us as a requirement by the then Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, the right hon. Member for Suffolk Coastal (Dr Coffey), because the Government had been taken to court by ClientEarth for being in breach of air pollution limits and therefore insisted that we should adopt the scheme in Bristol. If I have a chance to speak later, I will comment on how successful it was, but in any case that seems slightly at odds with the hon. Gentleman’s argument about local autonomy.

[Gareth Johnson]

I am grateful for that intervention, because it gives me an opportunity to smash the myth that the expansion of the ULEZ scheme has anything whatsoever to do with air pollution. If it was about air pollution, the Mayor of London would ban motor vehicles from going into London, but he does not want to ban them; he wants to make money out of them. If those motorists give the Mayor £12.50, they can drive all day long in London. He does not give a damn. Take my constituency in Dartford, for example: many people who previously used the Blackwall tunnel with ULEZ non-compliant vehicles are now having to use the Dartford crossing to get across the Thames. It is adding to pollution in areas such as Dartford, not removing it.

[Dean Russell (Watford) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend remember the letter I wrote in 2021, which was signed by many Members present today, including himself? Sadiq Khan, the Mayor of London, wanted to put a charge—a border tax, as I called it—on people driving into London, which had nothing to do with the environment at that time. He failed to do so after pressure was put on; a little bit later—shock horror—he puts the same thing out but with an environmental tinge to it. It is greenwashing, and it is making people in places such as Watford who work so hard pay extra just to go to work.

[Gareth Johnson]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and I pay tribute to the work he has done on this issue for some time. The approach to the border tax, as he called it, highlights the fact that the Mayor of London was hellbent on bringing in a system whereby he could make money out of cars. Originally, he wanted to make money out of every car; when he was stopped from doing that, he decided to make money out of certain cars only. That was his plan B.

[Sir Christopher Chope (Christchurch) (Con)]

My constituents are equally adversely affected, and would benefit from my hon. Friend’s Bill. Can he answer the question of why the Government themselves did not use the powers available to them to ban this extension of ULEZ?

[Gareth Johnson]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for intervening. As the law stands at the moment, the Government do not have the power to overturn the ULEZ expansion. As a consequence, I have introduced this Bill, which would give the Government the power to overturn the expansion.

I am really grateful to the Minister for his work and efforts on this issue, and for the fact that the Government now support the Bill. I therefore hope that it will be successful. We have heard about the scrappage scheme, but if we actually look into it, we see that it is up to £2,000 per vehicle—good luck getting a vehicle that is ULEZ compliant for up to £2,000. We are also hearing that people are finding it very difficult to actually get their £2,000, or up to £2,000, from Transport for London; there have been a lot of delays. People have said, “Why don’t we expand the scrappage scheme right down to Dartford and beyond?” Well, where do we draw the line if we are going to increase the scrappage area? Should it go up to the midlands or down to the west country? It could cost the taxpayers of this country billions of pounds, simply because the Mayor of London is unable to organise his finances.

[Theresa Villiers (Chipping Barnet) (Con)]

I strongly support my hon. Friend’s Bill, because this is an unjust charge. Does he agree that some of the victims of the charge are local high street businesses in outer London, whose customers from beyond the London border are reluctant to come in because they may have to pay the charge?

[Gareth Johnson]

I pay tribute to my right hon. Friend, who has been a real champion of this issue for her constituents in Barnet. She is absolutely right: people outside of London like to travel into London to use the dry cleaners, fish and chip shops, sweet shops and so on, but that no longer happens if their vehicle is not ULEZ compliant.

[Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)]

I have been listening to the hon. Gentleman very carefully. He keeps talking about money-making as if someone is making a profit, but that money goes to London’s services. He is a Dartford MP, from outside of London; how does he suggest that my constituents in London, who are writing to me in large numbers about the state of the potholes on our roads, can afford to pay for his constituents to drive through places such as my constituency on their way to the Blackwall tunnel? He is trying to deny Londoners the right to have decent roads.

[Gareth Johnson]

I am rather surprised that the hon. Member is standing up in support of what the Mayor of London has done with the ULEZ scheme. I think that if he looked at his inbox carefully, he would see that most of his constituents—particularly the poorest in his constituency—do not like the fact that they are having to pay £12.50 just to use their motor vehicles. I do not feel that this is something on which his constituents support him.

[Clive Efford]

I am a bit concerned that the hon. Gentleman has been looking into my emails—I think I will have a word with the parliamentary estate managers about that. Perhaps the reason I am standing up today is that not too many people have contacted me about ULEZ since it has been introduced; what they are contacting me about is the state of our roads. The potholes on our roads are symbolic of the Conservatives’ disastrous management of our public services over the past 14 years, and everyone is complaining about them.

[Gareth Johnson]

Maybe the hon. Member has an oasis in south London, where everyone around the outside hates the ULEZ scheme but in Eltham they love it, but I would be very surprised. I gently remind him that most of the roads in Eltham are maintained by Greenwich’s Labour council, which should take its share of responsibility for the state of the roads.

My hon. Friend the Member for Watford (Dean Russell) mentioned the “border charge”. The Mayor launched a consultation that showed that people rejected the expansion—it was absolutely clear they did not want it. There was a question mark over how that consultation was handled, but it was clear that the majority of people did not want the expansion, yet the Mayor still went ahead with it. When he stood to be Mayor, his manifesto did not mention the fact that he wanted to expand the ULEZ scheme right to the border, so he has no mandate from his manifesto. His transport plan had no mention of the expansion either, so the Mayor of London does not have a mandate for expanding the ULEZ scheme.

I have heard people say, “Well, this is interfering with devolution. It is undermining devolution.”—[Interruption.] I would say the opposite. It is the actions of the London Mayor that are undermining devolution. The whole point of devolution is to bequeath the power to make laws to Mayors, in this example, and for those elected Mayors to use the powers for the people they represent. It is not devolution when those powers have a profound impact on people who do not come from the area that Mayor represents. The Mayor of London’s actions have had a huge impact on the lives of people living in Dartford, who do not have the power to vote him in or out. It is taxation without representation, or any kind of accountability whatsoever. Frankly, it is devolution at its worst, which is why it is right that central Government intervene over this matter. Devolved powers are being taken way beyond intended and they are impacting people who are not able to vote in that area.

I predict that this is the beginning, not the end. If Sadiq Khan wins the election for London Mayor in May, as sure as night follows day he will change the criteria for vehicles to be ULEZ compliant until we get to the stage where every single petrol or diesel car is impacted by the expansion. People watching this debate at home—if they have nothing better to do on a Friday afternoon—may be sitting pretty, thinking, “This does not affect me because my car is ULEZ compliant; it has nothing to do with me.” I say they should be very aware of what happens at the mayoral elections. As sure as night follows day, the Mayor of London will change the goal posts and ensure that all motor vehicles will be hit by the ULEZ expansion.

[Mr French]

On that point, does my hon. Friend agree that it is clear that what the Mayor of London says and what he does are very different? He previously ruled out expanding ULEZ, and then he did it.

[Gareth Johnson]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. That is typical of what has happened throughout the debate about ULEZ. In July last year, the leader of the Labour party said that ULEZ expansion was a wonderful thing. Come the by-election in Uxbridge and South Ruislip, he said, “Oh no, we have got to think again over this one. I’m not quite sure if we got this one right.” Just this week, he said the ULEZ expansion was a great thing. We have had enormous dithering from the leader of the Labour party over this issue, and the Mayor of London is taking full advantage of that fact.

[Clive Efford]

On that point, will the hon. Gentleman give way?

--- Later in debate ---

[Gareth Johnson]

I will not. We had a Westminster Hall debate, at which many colleagues were present. Unfortunately, not a single Labour Back Bencher turned up. It was pitiful and it highlights the Labour party’s mismanagement of the issue. We have the mayoral election coming up in May, and the Conservative candidate, Susan Hall, has pledged to overturn the ULEZ expansion on day one. The quickest and most effective way to overturn the ULEZ expansion is therefore to vote for Susan Hall. If we do that, or if my Bill is successful, we will end a cruel tax on many people who have no say on London’s Mayor. It is an attack on the poorest in society, and those who can least afford to pay are being hit the hardest. I cannot wait to see the back of it.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lilian Greenwood]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. I would be surprised if many people decided that they wanted to go in the direction of having a Conservative Mayor in the absence of proper information about how a Conservative Mayor would tackle air pollution.

Finally, this Bill is about party political point scoring. The Government support clean air zones. Indeed, they provided cash for scrappage schemes in Bristol, Bath, Sheffield, Birmingham, Portsmouth and other areas of the country, but not London. I wonder why. In towns and cities across England—not just in London—our constituents have faced 14 years of Tory economic failure. They cannot afford another week, let alone more months or, heaven forbid, years of Tory Government. Families are sick with anxiety as they endure this cost of living crisis, while their local services are under immense pressure.

When times are tough due to the Conservatives’ economic failure, it is essential that we look at options for achieving clean air without disproportionately impacting people. We must secure our economy and make it stronger by getting growth back on course, as the last Labour Government did, whereas we have had an anaemic situation under 14 years of the Tories. [Interruption.] They do not want to hear it, do they? They do not want to hear that growth was faster under a Labour Government than under 14 years of the Tories. Fourteen years of Tory economic failure have left us in this position, where everything is worse and everything is broken. It is by growing our economy that we will provide sustainable, long-term funding for councils, and give local areas the tools and stability that they need for growth, as we push power, wealth and opportunity out from Westminster.

[Gareth Johnson]

The hon. Lady has been speaking for nearly half an hour, and it is obvious that she and the Labour party wish to talk out my Bill to overturn the expansion of the ULEZ scheme. Can I ask what her message is to a lady I spoke to recently in my constituency? She said that she could not visit her sister in Bexley, just a few miles away. As she was a disabled person, she could not use public transport, could not afford to upgrade her car, and could not afford a taxi. That may not affect people in Nottingham South, but it does affect people in Dartford.

[Lilian Greenwood]

I understand that people face a cost of living crisis. What the hon. Member should have explained to that lady is why she feels so much worse off after 14 years of Conservative Government. He should not try to pin it on a single issue; it is down to his Government’s failure, and he should take some responsibility for that.