Road User Charging Schemes

Theresa Villiers Excerpts

Monday 26th June 2023 Westminster Hall

[Theresa Villiers (Chipping Barnet) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Stringer.

I start by thanking my hon. Friend the Member for Don Valley (Nick Fletcher) for his very able introduction of this very important subject. I also thank everyone who has taken the trouble to sign the petitions that we are reflecting on today.

I will focus on the proposed extension of the ultra low emission zone to cover all London boroughs, including the whole of my Chipping Barnet constituency. I do not believe that this extension is either justified or acceptable. Although I can see that there is potentially a place for charging regimes in appropriate circumstances, ULEZ expansion is the wrong scheme at the wrong time.

Of course everyone in Westminster Hall today will agree that we need to reduce air pollution, and a range of Government policies are delivering progress towards that important goal. The Mayor of London published an independent impact assessment of his ULEZ expansion proposal that concluded that it would have only a negligible impact on air quality. I emphasise that—only a negligible impact. Yet I am sure that many of us have had constituents attending our surgeries to explain the financial hardship that they will experience as a result of this charge being introduced at a time of major increases in the cost of living.

[Mr Mark Francois (Rayleigh and Wickford) (Con)]

As an Essex MP, I wish to place firmly on the record my opposition to Mayor Khan’s ULEZ scheme, but another thing that affects air quality is when people have to queue for ages to get through roadworks. One thing that I support is what is known as lane rental, which is the concept whereby utility companies have to pay per day for the privilege of digging up the road and creating inconvenience for everyone else. The Minister and I have discussed this issue before. Essex County Council now supports this idea, by the way. Does my right hon. Friend agree that a sensible measure to improve air quality would be not to bring in ULEZ but to crack down on roadworks?

[Theresa Villiers]

I think that cracking down on roadworks is a good idea, although I have to say that we have heard many times that lane rental is to be introduced, and somehow we all still seem to get caught in those traffic jams. My right hon. Friend makes some valid points.

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

I am listening with great interest to my right hon. Friend, who is making a powerful case. Of course, the reason for this ULEZ is tax raising, not air pollution control, for which it has been proved conclusively not to work. In places such as Bexley, where we have good air quality, it is just to get money into the Mayor of London’s coffers.

[Theresa Villiers]

Many of my constituents agree with my right hon. Friend. It feels as if the suburbs are up in arms. They absolutely distrust the motivation behind the scheme. Other people who are concerned about ULEZ might be those with older vehicles, which they might have maintained carefully over many years, perhaps when Gordon Brown was telling us that we all ought to go to diesel to reduce emissions.

[Gill Furniss]

Does the right hon. Member recognise this quote?

“Poor air quality is the greatest environmental threat to public health. Every year, thousands of people have their health damaged or their lives shortened by air pollution. This problem is especially serious in London, with many of the country’s worst pollution hotspots here in our capital city…and we need a concerted national effort to tackle this problem from Government, from councils, from mayors, from business, from individuals.”—[Official Report, 3 February 2021; Vol. 688, c. 971.]

Those were her words in 2021.

[Theresa Villiers]

And if I thought that this ULEZ project would improve air quality, I might be saying a different thing this afternoon, but the Mayor’s own impact assessment said that it will have a “negligible impact” on air pollution.

Think also about the sole traders or people running small businesses who are dependent on a van they cannot easily afford to replace, even if they fall into the limited category of those who qualify for the scrappage scheme. Those people all face a charge of £12.50, or having to scale back radically their mobility and their freedom to see their friends and family or, in extreme cases, shutting down a business altogether.

The Mayor made no mention of ULEZ expansion in his manifesto; a majority who responded to the consultation opposed his plan; and he is giving people only a few months to get ready for its imposition. Other charging schemes were announced years in advance, giving reasonable time for everyone to adjust.

[Munira Wilson (Twickenham) (LD)]

The right hon. Lady talks about the timing of the roll-out. My Liberal Democrat colleagues and I absolutely agree that, in the midst of a cost of living crisis, to roll out the expansion of ULEZ recklessly, at breakneck speed, is absolutely the wrong timing. Will she and other colleagues in this Chamber sign my early-day motion 1364? It was tabled today and calls for a delay to the roll-out, a doubling of the scrappage schemes—something that Conservatives in the London Assembly supported the Liberal Democrats on—and the Government to fund a scrappage scheme for those areas outside London where many of our key workers, who will be hit so hard, come in from.

[Theresa Villiers]

Everyone loves a convert, but I wish we had not seen Liberal Democrats in local government all across London welcoming the Mayor’s scheme, which is what they appeared to do.

[Munira Wilson]

Will the right hon. Lady give way?

[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.

[Sir Iain Duncan Smith]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend; she is, as ever, making a powerful contribution. I want to push her on that point. The number of taxi drivers has now halved. Road blockages, lengthy queues and difficulties in getting around London have made their lives a living hell, and more and more of them are leaving the profession. One of the great shining examples of London transport is being killed off by the present Mayor.

[Theresa Villiers]

Many of my constituents who drive taxis will share my right hon. Friend’s concerns. It would be a real tragedy if London lost its licensed taxi fleet, but it feels that Mayor Khan is turning the city into a hostile environment for car drivers, taxi drivers and people who depend on vans and lorries.

In conclusion, the expansion of the ultra low emission zone to outer London has no mandate. It will do virtually nothing for air quality, it will be economically damaging and it will hit the poorest harder than anyone else. The Mayor should dismantle Labour’s hated ULEZ expansion. If he does not, I sincerely hope that Londoners will take the opportunity to vote him out next May and replace him with a Conservative Mayor of London.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Mark Francois (Rayleigh and Wickford) (Con)]

I confess that I had not originally planned to speak in this debate, but as not a single Labour or Lib Dem Back Bencher has put in to speak, I will make a few points in lieu of them.

The ULEZ zone affects outer London, stretching out towards the county of Essex, in some cases well past the M25. Many of my constituents and people who live in Essex will be affected by the imposition of the charge, and, because they do not live in Greater London, they cannot vote Mayor Khan out of office or vote anyone else into office. For them it really is a case of taxation without representation, which is one reason I feel strongly about it, and even more so after having heard excellent speeches on the topic by my Conservative colleagues this afternoon.

The Mayor says the issue is about air quality, but it is not. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Chipping Barnet (Theresa Villiers) made perfectly clear, the studies and detailed scientific analysis show that the effect of the ULEZ on air quality will be marginal at best. Everybody knows the truth. It is not about air quality. That is the fig leaf that Mayor Khan is using to justify it. It is about money, because TfL is effectively bankrupt and has been for some years. He is therefore trying to use the charge to fill a black hole. It is perfectly obvious what he is up to, and I think every Londoner in their heart of hearts knows that.

The charge will add to the other problems that the Mayor has introduced such as the road closures and road narrowing measures in London, which serve to create more pollution on an increasingly congested number of remaining roads, because the traffic has to go somewhere. Such measures make London one of the worst cities in which to drive.

As has already been made plain, not everyone can take public transport. If people need tools or equipment for work, they have no choice other than to drive. People in the public sector will be affected, including Met police officers and NHS workers who have to drive into London to work in hospitals. I declare an interest: my wife will be one of those affected. It will also affect people in the private sector such as tradespeople going about their work trying to get to and from their place of business. All of those people will have their lives made more difficult by Mayor Khan. Let us be honest: he does not like cars and he does not seem to like car drivers, either.

A black cabbie said to me a few weeks ago, “I’ve been doing this job for over 30 years and I have never known the traffic in London to be as bad as it is now. Between all the road closures and the roadworks it is virtually impossible to get anywhere and it is about time someone raised it in Parliament.” Well, Bill—I think that was his name—now they have. Bill the cabbie was absolutely right. It is becoming incredibly difficult to drive across our capital city because there are so few arteries that we can take. If there is an accident or heavy roadworks on one of the arteries, that whole part of London an rapidly grind to a halt.

[Theresa Villiers]

Will my right hon. Friend give way?

[Mr Francois]

In return for earlier, I am glad to.

[Theresa Villiers]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that in an age when we are trying to become a more productive economy, it is madness to make it more difficult to get around our capital city, which generates so much of our GDP? That is crazy.

[Mr Francois]

Yes. Perhaps it is a function of my age, but I can remember a time when the fastest way to get across London was to hop in a cab. It is certainly not that way now. We have about half the number of black cab drivers that we had prior to the pandemic, which is a fantastic drop-off, bearing in mind that it takes an average of three or four years to do the knowledge and get a green badge. Many of them have given up. From talking to them or to friends of people who have given up, we find that many have done so partly because of their age—that was an effect of the pandemic—but that many others have given up because it is so difficult to get across London. It is just too stressful a way to earn a living. That is why sometimes people can wait quite a long while to get a black cab in London. There are far fewer around than there were. If anybody knows about the challenges of driving across London, I would suggest that black cab drivers are well-placed to comment.

One of the other great problems is roadworks, which have a great effect on air quality. One of the most frustrating things about modern life, is it not, is spending ages in a car crawling ever so slowly forward toward the lights to get through that contraflow, only to finally make it through the lights and drive past a perfectly coned-off big hole in the ground with absolutely no one in sight doing any work on it at all? How many people get wound up by that?

We have had a proliferation of roadworks in my county of Essex. We are the roadworks capital of the UK. In a recently recorded 12-month period, we had 77,000 roadworks of one kind or another. I cannot blame that on Mayor Khan. I could talk about the utility companies or Essex County Council’s highways, but there is just too much to say. I have launched a “Can the Cones” campaign, which the Minister kindly agreed to meet me about in March. One thing he was looking at was lane rental—not ULEZ—which involves making contractors pay by the day to dig up roads. In the parts of the country where that has been brought in, contractors, funnily enough, tend to get the job done much quicker. Perhaps in the Minister’s reply he could spare a moment to say where he has got to on that.

Essex County Council, I am pleased to say, has come around to the idea and is working on a joint scheme with Suffolk to introduce it. The reason why it is so important is that as communities have grown historically, we have tended to find that most of the utilities have been laid on a very limited number of roads, and those are the ones that get dug up again and again. They would be ideal candidates for which to bring in some form of lane rental.

I thank the House for its forbearance, and I would summarise the issue as follows: ULEZ is going to be, if it is introduced—I hope the Mayor might yet relent—a tax on ordinary, hard-working men and people of this country, who will be penalised £12.50 a day for having the temerity to want to go to work to earn money and put food on their family’s plates. That is what Mayor Khan is doing. The whole bit about air quality is complete camouflage. It is not about that; it is about the money. For that reason, the petitioners are right: rather than the cars, it is ULEZ that should be scrapped.

--- Later in debate ---

[Gill Furniss]

I did not say that; I said that I will come to that later in my speech.

The Minister may not want to admit it, but a clear policy direction has been set by the Government, and local authorities are merely meeting their obligations at the behest of Government. Although Government Members like to kick up a fuss about clean air zones, their Government have approved those clean air zones where air pollution reductions have been legally required. Having essentially required councils to implement clean air zones, Ministers have failed to follow through with the support to help councils to meet their air quality targets.

To take just one example, let us look at the Government’s record on the transition to electric vehicles. Electric vehicles do not produce any nitrogen oxide pollution and they produce significantly less PM_2.5 pollution. Encouraging people to switch from petrol and diesel cars to EVs is therefore a vital step in improving air quality, but under the Conservatives, we are at risk of stalling the switch.

[Mrs Sheryll Murray in the Chair]

Ministers have slashed help to purchase electric vehicles, and we are set to miss the target for 300,000 EV charging points by almost two decades. That is why our world-class car manufacturers are losing confidence in investing in Britain.

Air pollution causes huge harm to human health, which is why Labour has made ambitious pledges to reduce it, and we plan to get there by helping the switch to cleaner transport. That is why we have a transition plan to enable people to switch affordably to low-emission vehicles. Labour’s plan would make Britain a world leader in electric vehicles; our national wealth fund would invest in eight battery plants nationwide and win the global race for the future of the industry. With action to expand charging infrastructure, Labour’s plan for green growth will drive jobs, tackle the cost of living crisis and help to clean up toxic air.

[Theresa Villiers]

Can the hon. Lady confirm whether the Labour candidate in the Uxbridge and South Ruislip by-election supports ULEZ expansion?

[Gill Furniss]

I thank the right hon. Lady for that question. She would perhaps would want to ask the candidate that; I am not here to put words in his mouth.