Greater London Low Emission Zone Charging (Amendment) Bill

Stella Creasy Excerpts

Friday 22nd March 2024 Commons Chamber

[Lilian Greenwood]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. It was really telling when the hon. Member for Dartford began to talk about his mayoral candidate that he said nothing about her plans to tackle the serious issue of air pollution.

[Stella Creasy (Walthamstow) (Lab/Co-op)]

My hon. Friend hits on a blunter truth about the Bill. In six weeks’ time, our constituents, whether they agree or not with the argument made by the hon. Member for Dartford or with arguments on the importance of tackling air pollution, will have the opportunity to express an opinion at the ballot box when choosing who the London Mayor overseeing this policy should be. Is the message of the Bill that Conservative MPs have no confidence in their mayoral candidate winning that argument, or indeed doing anything in support of their policies? They clearly feel the need to intervene and usurp devolution, so should nobody in London even bother with the Conservative campaign, because their candidate’s own colleagues think she is incompetent?

[Lilian Greenwood]

My hon. Friend has hit the nail on the head.

Progress is being achieved. The vast majority of cars —19 out of 20 in Greater London—are compliant with ULEZ. Labour Members are pleased that Transport for London and the Mayor of London have decided to expand the scrappage scheme to support those who are struggling as a result of the Tory cost of living crisis.

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[Lilian Greenwood]

As I was saying, that devolution is as well as always having regional and local decision making and funding across England. I am pleased that the next Labour Government will build on that record. Indeed, Labour Mayors across England are already showing how it is done—whether that is in Manchester, Liverpool, South Yorkshire or West Yorkshire—taking back control of buses, supporting new homes, and reforming employment and skills. I am very much looking forward to seeing Claire Ward elected as the first Mayor of the East Midlands on 2 May. Sadly, while Labour is committed to more devolution, this Bill shows that the Tories are simply trying to roll it back.

I wish to say a little more about air pollution, which is at the heart of this Bill, and the strategies to tackle it. As I have already said, we know the problems that poor air causes. It affects our health and our environment; as many as 40,000 people die prematurely each year as a result of poor air quality. The elderly, the unwell and the economically deprived are those most likely to be affected. The Government’s own estimates say that poor air quality costs the UK economy billions of pounds each year. I think about my own constituency and the arguments that we had about the workplace parking levy. Lots of people in the city do not pay the levy, because they simply cannot afford to run a car at all; they are reliant on public transport.

We also know where the problem occurs. Key pollutants, including nitrogen dioxide and fine particulate matter —known as PM_2.5—are found in many places, and too many air quality zones in the UK exceed legal limits. The World Health Organisation tells us that there is no safe level of exposure to fine particulate matter. We know what causes poor air quality. It comes from several sources—industry, agriculture, homes, businesses, and, yes, transport. Road transport is responsible for the vast majority of nitrogen oxide concentrations at places in the UK that exceed the legal limits, with diesel engines a significant contributor.

The number of cars and vans on our roads continues to rise and congestion has worsened, which increases pollution in itself. Transport also generates a significant proportion of particulate matter, which can come from both combustion and wear of tyres and brake pads. Cleaner vehicles help to solve the problem, and we have made some progress on that, but not enough.

There are examples from across the country of the action that can be taken to tackle emissions. Low emission zones are only one tool in the toolbox, and it could be said that they should be a last resort. As I have said, in my city, there has been considerable investment in public transport, paid for in part by proceeds from the workplace parking levy. We have had major extensions to our tram network. Nottingham’s municipal bus company introduced new biogas buses years ago, and I am really pleased to see that it has just started to roll out new electric vehicles. I do not deny that there has been support from central Government for some of that investment. For some years, the city council has had an anti-idling campaign. That multi-pronged approach mirrors similar action in towns and cities across the UK, with not one but multiple tools being used to tackle this serious public health issue.

The Department for Transport has supported the development of low emission buses and taxis. That is a good thing, because tackling poor air quality should be about central Government working with local councils and Mayors, rather than dictating to them, as the Bill does. Central Government should support and collaborate with them. In preparing for the debate, I went back to a 2018 report, produced by four cross-party Select Committees, that looked at improving air quality. One thing that the Committees came together to recommend was collaboration and partnership between central Government, local authorities and Mayors, because air pollution is a problem that cannot be fixed by central or local government alone; they need to work together.

Like the Mayor of London, local authorities are already responsible for meeting air quality targets, but they find it difficult to make changes, partly due to a lack of resources and partly because the changes needed are politically unpalatable; I guess that in part is what has caused the debate. It was a while ago, but that joint report from 2018 called for ambitious, co-ordinated cross-departmental action. I am sorry that in some respects the Government have failed on that, as they have prevaricated on removing the most polluting vehicles from our roads. At the time of the report, we called on them to have a more ambitious target for the removal of petrol and diesel cars; I think they were only committed to removing them by 2040. They did at first commit to a more ambitious target of ending the sale of petrol and diesel cars, but more recently, they have rowed back from that, which makes it more difficult for us to achieve the improvements that we know are needed.

There was also a decision to row back on the electrifi-cation of our railways, in favour of bi-mode trains, which have worrying implications for air quality, carbon emissions and noise. Every time I go to St Pancras station to catch my train home to Nottingham, I stand on the platform among diesel trains because the railway is not electrified all the way to Nottingham. Frankly, I am looking forward to seeing new trains on the midland main line next year, but they will be bi-mode trains, and while they will leave St Pancras under electric power, which will improve air quality in central London, by the time they get to Nottingham, they will be operating under diesel power, doing far less to improve air quality in our city. That is the result of a decade of broken promises from successive Tory Prime Ministers, who have paused and cancelled the electrification of the midland mainline. We now know that electric trains will not reach Nottingham until at least the early 2030s. I have sometimes joked that I will be retired by the time we get there, and I am afraid that might be the case.

There is a danger of the Government relying too heavily on new technologies to solve our air quality challenges, and placing too much emphasis on cleaning up road vehicles and not enough on reducing the number of vehicles on our roads. Improving public transport and encouraging active travel should lie at the heart of any clean air strategy. Getting freight off our roads and on to our railways would be welcome, taking many heavy goods vehicles, which are often the most polluting, off our roads.

Back in 2018, the four Select Committees concluded that the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and the Department for Transport should work closely with local authorities to ensure that councils introducing clean air zones received the support that they needed to implement complementary measures that encourage car drivers to switch to public transport and active travel, and increase the take-up of electric vehicles. I understand that not every journey can be made by public transport or bicycle, or on foot, but if we can change a proportion of those journeys, we can make a real difference. For a while, the Conservative party seemed really interested in walking and cycling —I see the Minister with responsibility for walking and cycling, the hon. Member for Hexham (Guy Opperman), sitting on the Front Bench, but he has not been terribly busy. Yesterday at transport questions, not a single Conservative MP asked a question about active travel. It is disappointing that they have scaled back their investment in that.

Investment in low-emission buses is great, but the value of that investment is magnified if local authorities also take steps to encourage motorists to opt for buses, rather than make journeys by car. I understand the argument made by the hon. Member for Dartford that people can continue to drive, but of course a charge is a disincentive; that is partly how the scheme operates. The pandemic had a huge impact on public transport usage, both in London and across the country. I pay tribute to the Government for their £2 bus fare, which has been a welcome initiative. In London, the Labour Mayor Sadiq Khan has also taken action, both to protect Londoners from the Tory cost of living crisis and to encourage more people to travel by public transport; he has introduced the hopper fare on buses, and has frozen fares in five out of eight years.

Without action or a modal shift, efforts to tackle congestion or improve air quality are less likely to succeed. Many of the policies needed to tackle urban congestion could also help to improve air quality. Tackling both issues could have a positive effect on both the local and the national economy. A significant increase in active travel could make a difference not just to air quality policies but to tackling obesity, improving mental health and building better communities.

[Stella Creasy]

My hon. Friend is making an incredibly powerful case for why air quality should be a priority for us all. Ultimately, it is a social justice issue. However rich or poor we are, we all breathe the same air. I suggest to anyone who lives in London that they will see the need to tackle low air quality if they leave London for a couple of days and then blow their nose. They will realise what they have been breathing in. This issue affects everyone. She is right that we must tackle it nationally as well as locally. Does she agree that unless the Conservatives comes up with an alternative plan, they are condemning the poorest in our communities to the worst health outcomes?

[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.

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[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.

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[Kerry McCarthy]

I was thinking in the context of the right hon. Member for Bexleyheath and Crayford (Sir David Evennett) saying that he does not have a tube station in his part of Greater London, as though the only alternative to the tube is driving. London has a pretty decent bus system, but we need to make sure that people have that alternative.

Again, I am going to say something nice: we have had confirmation today that First Bus has received funding under the next wave of the zero-emission bus regional areas scheme to turn all of our buses into electric vehicles. We have been experimenting with biogas, but that funding will do an awful lot. We do have some clean biogas buses, and my right hon. and learned Friend the leader of the Labour party got to drive one on one of his previous visits to the city. He was like a little boy with a new toy, it has to be said—I think he greatly enjoyed it.

[Stella Creasy]

Given that the evidence shows that ULEZ has cut pollution in central London by almost half, the challenge that the Minister is presenting slightly misreads how people travel around London. As an outer-London MP, I am acutely conscious that people also drive within the borough to work, as well as between outer London boroughs. The idea that we would have the same impact on reducing pollution just by focusing on the centre misses the challenge that we are all trying to address. Nobody is saying that this is easy or that it is not controversial. I have the north circular running through my constituency, and I see the pollution. I see children and adults struggling with the consequences, and I am sure the same is true in south London. We have to consider how people travel around London to understand the best way of tackling these issues. It cannot just be theoretical. It has to be a practical model, does it not?

[Kerry McCarthy]

My hon. Friend is right, and she brings me on to my final point. Her borough of Waltham Forest hosts the mini-Holland scheme, which I have cycled around on an e-bike. Each week, the council’s transport lead takes people on a tour so that they can learn from the scheme. These local schemes can transform neighbourhoods by designing out some of the traffic and making them pleasant places to live, by building things like sustainable urban drainage schemes and areas where people can sit and talk.

A liveable neighbourhood pilot is just about to start in my constituency. It is important to engage the local community, to explain how it will work for them and to listen when they say how it might cause problems in certain areas. Although there has been some opposition, groups such as St George Breathing Better—which was founded by a group of parents whose children are suffering because of the city’s air pollution—are very much behind the pilot.

I return to the Secretary of State’s disappointing remarks about 15-minute cities. As well as bigger measures, such as ULEZ to address Greater London’s transport problems, we need to consider local solutions such as liveable neighbourhoods and school street schemes to encourage people to walk to school and work, and to make it as easy as possible for people to get around without resorting to their car. This should be about giving elected politicians the right to implement such solutions in consultation with the people they represent.