Poorest to be hit with £4500 stealth tax — thanks Labour, says DANIEL KORSKI
How can Labour claim to be on the side of hard-working families when one of their most powerful sitting politicians, Sadiq Khan, wants to expand a hefty extra tax on people who can’t afford a new car, at the height of an income squeeze?
Khan’s ULEZ stealth tax on outer London will do nothing but hike up the cost of living and harm the economy.
A massive 2.5m ULEZ fines have been handed out in just 18 months, Express.co.uk reported this week.
That’s around £400m from the pockets of drivers.
This is quite enough, and I’ll put a stop to the planned expansion of the tax on day one in City Hall.
READ MORE: Unions blame Government as strikes reach highest level in over 30 years
Khan is planning to increase the ULEZ zone by a whopping 18 times, right out to the M25 and into the home counties. All at the height of a cost-of-living crisis. And it will cost us all and do little for the environment.
It will also disproportionately punish people who can’t afford to live near a tube station, most on London’s edges, as well as families, small businesses, and some charities too. Khan U-turned at the beginning of the month and admitted these three groups need extra help. But it’s far too little, far too late.
ULEZ expansion will also harm the wider economy, with many small businesses across the capital suffering from reduced footfall due to new driving restrictions.
Expanding ULEZ itself is not cheap with £200m needed for the cameras and infrastructure, and £130m on the scrappage scheme (before it was recently extended).
All this for a scheme that people don’t want and might never be implemented. Half a dozen councils are openly opposed, and a couple have already pledged not to cooperate or allow the camera to operate within the boundaries. You couldn’t make it up!
The truth is, the Mayor has been too busy promoting his fashionable new book and spending too little time listening to the Londoners he claims to represent.
Hillingdon Council, for example, plans to take legal action against the mayor and blasts “the impact on local businesses and services, including the recruitment and retention of the workforce.”
The council surveyed 11,500 people and found that 55 percent of respondents had a vehicle that was non-compliant, indicating most drivers in the borough face a £12.50 tax every day — or up to £4500 a year. And for what?
For months prior to his U-turn, Khan had been attacking critics of his plan as opponents of environmentalism and clean air. But his ULEZ money-grab will do little to clean up the environment, whilst driving drivers in London around the bend and turning them against sensible green policies.
Let me explain. Khan never talks about pollution on the Underground (15 times worse than our roads, according to some estimates) which millions use every day. If he cared about clean air, he’d start by cleaning up our air on the Tube.
And what about the data indicating that the most polluting cars will come off our roads in the near future anyway? By forcing old cars off the road now with the ULEZ tax he is driving up the cost of compliant cars. The Mayor needs to give London drivers a break.
We also know that 80 percent of London’s carbon emissions come from buildings, not roads, and much of the rest from construction. So ULEZ won’t help the environment significantly either.
As Mayor, I’ll prioritise the causes of pollution and carbon emissions that significantly affect London. I’ll follow an evidence-based approach to clean up air on our construction sites and Underground system. And I won’t pursue an unfair and ineffective road tax.
I’ll also be looking at ‘low traffic neighbourhoods’, some of which cause more traffic, and fight to give communities a say when they are imposed by councils.
As Mayor, I’ll make positive changes and empower people, in contrast to Khan’s arbitrary bans and suffocating restrictions.
The fact that this Mayor has failed to make TfL financially sustainable in other ways goes, I think, some way to explaining Khan’s commitment to this tax, despite its obvious unpopularity and ineffectiveness.
But the implementation costs, opposition to the scheme, and wider economic damage could leave City Hall worse off in the end.
I will scrap the ULEZ expansion on my first day in office and joining my campaign is the best way to help stop this dreadful policy.
A previous version of this article stated it was reported that 2.5m people were hit with ULEZ fines in 18 months. In fact, while 2.5m fines were issued in that time, this involved a smaller number of people due to some receiving more than one PCN. We are happy to set the record straight.
Become an Express Premium member
- Support fearless journalism
- Read The Daily Express online, advert free
- Get super-fast page loading
Originally published at https://www.express.co.uk on June 19, 2023.