Before I call the hon. Member for Don Valley (Nick Fletcher) to open the debate, I wish to make a short statement about the sub judice resolution. I have been advised that a petition being debated today indirectly relates to a case about the expansion of the ultra low emission zone; the case is ongoing, and therefore sub judice. Mr Speaker has agreed to exercise the discretion given to the Chair in respect of the resolution on matters sub judice to allow reference to the case, given the issues of national importance that it raises.
That this House has considered e-petitions 599985 and 633550, relating to local road user charging schemes.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship today, Mr Stringer. We are here today to discuss two petitions. The first seeks the revocation of local government powers to charge for clean air zones, low emission zones and ultra low emission zones, and the second seeks amendments to the Greater London Authority Act 1999 to remove the Mayor of London’s power to impose road-user charges.
I often lead these petition debates, and I always look at the argument from both sides. For every petition, there is an opposing view; it is important to consider all aspects and that everyone’s voice is heard. Cancel culture has no part to play in a healthy democracy. I have therefore taken the time to speak to not just the petitioners but, among others, Asthma + Lung UK and the Ella Roberta Foundation.
Let me start with the facts: who put the legislation forward, and who was in charge of putting the schemes in place? The then Labour Government gave local authorities the ability to charge road users in part 3 of the Transport Act 2000, and the Mayor of London was given powers by the GLA Act 1999 under the same Labour Government.
The Transport Act gave those powers to local authorities to reduce congestion and to help with air quality. Schemes have now been put in place in London, which has both a ULEZ and a congestion zone, and clean air zones are currently in place in Bath, Birmingham, Bradford, Bristol, Portsmouth, Sheffield and Tyneside—all Labour or Opposition-controlled authorities. I am pleased to announce that I have had reassurances from the Labour Mayor of Doncaster that my city will not be subject to one of these schemes. Pedestrianisation is already doing untold damage to the local economy, and one of these schemes in my city would surely be the final straw.
My hon. Friend is making an excellent speech. He has talked about road charging, and the problem right now in the outer boroughs of London, where the ULEZ charge is apparently to be applied, is that it is coming in under the idea that it will clean up the air, yet Transport for London made it very clear in a report that it would have a negligible effect. Does he agree that we should be honest and say that this is actually about raising revenue, and let the electorate decide on that?
My right hon. Friend makes an important point, and a lot of Members in the room obviously agree.
Sadly, in South Yorkshire, we have lost an airport due to the lack of political support against an overzealous green agenda. We are losing our city’s businesses due to pedestrianisation, we are losing footfall from terminating buses in one place, instead of allowing people to use stops across the city, and we are losing our market for the same reason—yet we have wonderful new council offices. The staff could bring much business to the town but, sadly, most of them seem to be working from home. Why? Because the elected leaders do so. That is the reason why: they set a poor example. That too is killing footfall.
At one point, Doncaster was a tourist attraction; hundreds of thousands of people used to come to our market. The market is still there, but under a new management company, and with a lack of footfall, tenants are struggling. My home city of Doncaster has so many assets that are not being used to create the business and footfall that they should. There are only three Mansion Houses in the country: in London, York and Doncaster. Why is our Mansion House in Doncaster not open all year round? Why has the Grand Theatre been left to rot? Why do we not have free parking to encourage people to come to town? Why do we not put weekly events on and advertise them to get people into our towns, or open business hubs and careers fairs, to give people a reason to come to our towns? That would get the markets thriving again and in turn get the shops reopening.
We could do all these things, and while we rejuvenate our towns and cities the capitalists—the wealth creators out there—will continue to develop the green technologies that will eventually increase the efficiency of our petrol cars and reduce the cost of electric vehicles. That is the way to do this. The way forward to clean air can be —indeed, should be—win-win and not lose-lose. I emphasise win-win, but no, the Labour party will always go for the tax lever. Price everyone out of their towns and cities, and sit by and watch the demise from home, while they are on Zoom calls in their echo chambers and blame the internet and central Government for their business closures.
It is 55 years in Doncaster—55 years of a Labour council in Doncaster. Fifty-five long, long years.
I agree with net zero; I just think that it can be done in a better way than this. People want more power locally, but too often it is given to the wrong people. The cities that I mentioned are testimony to this statement. These schemes show how out of touch and disconnected politicians at local level are from the people and from businesses. The people and businesses do not want these schemes, but the politicians wilfully ignore their wishes, on purpose and with no care about the terrible impact the schemes have. This situation cannot be acceptable in a democracy.
I will close by simply asking the Minister to consider seriously the petitioners’ requests. They make an awful lot of sense.
I ask hon. Members who wish to be called in the debate to stand. This is a three-hour debate, so I do not think there is any necessity for a time limit.
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.
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?
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.
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.
“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.]
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.
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.
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.
I will speak first on behalf of those who oppose the petitions—those who think that these schemes are not just necessary but vital for our country. I met Tim Dexter and Andrea Carey. Tim works at Asthma + Lung UK and understands that these schemes can cause controversy, but believes that they are not a big issue with the wider electorate. He believes that pollution is too high and says that young people are growing up with decreased lung capacity. Tim also stated that having clean air in the city and avoiding losses to businesses does not need to be an either/or situation, as he believes that pedestrianisation, alongside ULEZ and clean air zones, can be shown to increase footfall. For the record, I have not seen any evidence that supports that to date.
Andrea is the chair of the Ella Roberta Foundation, which supports the Clean Air (Human Rights) Bill, also known as Ella’s law. Ella is a young girl who died when she was nine. She lived close to the south circular and had been diagnosed with asthma. Her long walk to school meant that she was exposed to car fumes, and air pollution was stated on her death certificate to be a secondary cause. Andrea says that, each year, 38,000 deaths are attributable to illnesses related to air quality. She says that a lot of money is spent on treating people with lung conditions, and businesses would benefit from cleaner air as that would mean that employees took less time off due to ill health. Those are fair points.
I will now speak on behalf of the petitioners. I met Edward Green, who had much to say on this subject. Edward, who lives in London, said that these schemes are bad for business and families, and that they increase isolation. He described them as a tax on the poor, a cost to freedom, undemocratic and an abuse of power. He also stated that the scrappage schemes are ineffective.
In addition to my evidence-gathering sessions, I recently visited Sheffield and Doncaster and asked businesses there what they thought of the schemes. They all agreed with Edward. One contractor in Sheffield said that he had 20 vans on a construction site, so the scheme introduced in the city earlier this year is going to cost him close to £50,000 this year in extra fees. Every construction site in every city with such a scheme will now face similar costs, and as we all know, those costs will eventually be passed on to the public—to us, to me and you, Mr Stringer. Carers, tradespeople, health workers and others will be prevented from working by the punitive charges.
That will be catastrophic for the economy in London’s suburbs, as workers from Essex, Kent, Surrey, Sussex, Buckinghamshire and Berkshire will simply not be able to work in the suburbs. Every county surrounding London will be significantly affected, and for the worse. I have spoken to shop workers who have said that if the charges are introduced where they work, they may have no choice but to find alternative employment. Not only will businesses suffer because of decreased footfall, but they will suffer when trying to find staff to help run their businesses.
These issues have been debated in the House before. My hon. Friend the Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Elliot Colburn) stated:
“If we price people out of their vehicles, without potential alternatives available, we will not just be hitting people’s pockets by charging them more to use private vehicles; we could be costing them their livelihoods.”—[Official Report, 9 March 2022; Vol. 710, c. 137-138WH.]
He is correct. In the main Chamber, I have mentioned the concept of 15-minute cities. When I see all the cameras being installed, I ask whether that is the end goal for Labour-run authorities. The question needs to be asked.
As Members can see, there is much opposition to road user charging schemes. Nobody disputes that we all want cleaner air; the question is whether clean air zones and ultra low emission zones are the way to achieve that. Personally, I think not. In tourist hotspots, where visitors come from all over the world to spend money, an American or Chinese tourist will not be put off central London because of the ULEZ, but even then, it still hurts everyone who works in the city who needs a vehicle. I know some people will still argue that the ULEZ is needed in the very centre of London, but what about Sheffield, Doncaster and thousands of other towns and villages? Is such a scheme needed there, where the economy is built on servicing the needs of local people? I think not.
I have no doubt that these schemes will have respiratory health benefits for individuals, but not because the air is cleaner in the cities. No, it will simply be because people will be staying out of the cities and staying at home, often in isolation, while their mental health suffers and the economy struggles to survive.
There are many other ways to tackle this problem, but as usual the Labour party will go for the tax lever rather than the innovation lever, and as always, the working person will suffer. I want cleaner air; I agree with net zero.