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news
ULEZ signs - Licensed CC BY 2.0 by Matt Brown on FlickrLabour reportedly drops plans for nationwide ULEZ rollout
Labour has reportedly dropped plans for a nationwide rollout clean air zones, similar to London’s Ultra Low Emissions Zone (ULEZ) should it regain power in the next general election.
The news, reported in The Telegraph, follows last month’s by-election in former Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s Uxbridge & South Ruislip, which resulted in a narrow Conservative victory with the forthcoming expansion of ULEZ to cover the whole of Greater London the focal point of the campaign.
Initially given the go-ahead by former Mayor of London Boris Johnson, the area covered by ULEZ when it came into force in 2019, by which point Labour’s Sadiq Khan had succeeded him at City Hall, was the same as that of the congestion charge zone.
> Whose ULEZ is it anyway? Political chicanery as clean air zone set to expand to outer London
The scheme, under which drivers of the most polluting cars have to pay a £12.50 charge each day they enter the zone, was subsequently extended in 2021 to encompass the area within the North and South Circular Roads, and from 29 August will apply to the whole of Greater London.
Following the recent by-election, which the Conservative Party attributed to local opposition to ULEZ, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said that he had ordered a review of low-traffic neighbourhoods, with what the Tories term the “war on the motorist” likely to be a key campaigning issue in the next general election.
> Rishi Sunak accused of seeking to exploit division over LTNs as he orders review of schemes
According to The Telegraph, Labour’s National Policy Forum is set to debate clean air zones shortly, with a draft policy document originally backing them, saying that the party “supports the principle of clean air zones and recognises the huge damage to human health caused by air pollution and the damage to our climate caused by carbon emissions from polluting vehicles.
“However, they must be phased in carefully, mindful of the impacts on small businesses and low-paid workers, and should be accompanied with a just transition plan to enable people to switch affordably to low-emission vehicles.”
But the newspaper adds that those paragraphs were deleted following the Uxbridge & South Ruislip by-election.
It quotes a Labour source as saying: “Clean air zones are Conservative government policy. The Tories are the ones who have pushed councils to introduce them. Labour is not in favour of extra burdens on drivers during a Tory-made cost of living crisis.
“Labour’s priority is growing the economy to improve living standards and tackle the cost of living crisis, not pushing up costs for hard working families.
“We are committed to tackling air pollution and we will introduce a Clean Air Act, but we will always look at options for reducing air pollution which do not put the burden on hard working families,” the source added.
One Labour MP was quoted in the newspaper as criticising the apparent change of policy.
Rachael Maskell, MP for York Central, said: “I think Sadiq Khan called it right when he said we wouldn’t accept dirty water, so why accept dirty air?
“I would say it’s absolutely essential that we make those interventions that make a difference.
“An Ulez cannot be introduced without proper mitigation – we know that the cost of electric cars is prohibitive,” she continued.
“But we’ve got to address the practical reality and that’s by putting green alternatives forward.
“We’ve got to remember it is people living in the most deprived areas that are most affected by poor air quality. This goes to an essential value of Labour and we’ve got to seriously look at this before coming to office, because the consequences of not doing so will mean people could die unnecessarily.
“I think Labour should follow the science with this, and with that ensure that no community experiences detriment,” she added.
Susan Hall, who was recently selected to be the Conservative candidate in the next London mayoral election, due to be held in May next year, cast doubt on the Labour leaders comments.
“Everyone knows Labour won’t stop with Sadiq Khan’s Ulez expansion, no matter what they say,” she claimed.
“[Shadow Chancellor] Angela Rayner has admitted that she wants to see ULEZ schemes all over the country. Sadiq Khan’s tax will punish poorer families who rely on their cars, and Keir Starmer was too weak to tell him to stop.
“That is why we must stop them both at the ballot box in 2024.”
Meanwhile, the Telegraph reports that cars bearing anti-ULEZ stickers had their tyres slashed while their owners were attending a protest against the scheme in Bromley, one of the outer London boroughs that the zone is being expanded to.
Simon joined road.cc as news editor in 2009 and is now the site’s community editor, acting as a link between the team producing the content and our readers. A law and languages graduate, published translator and former retail analyst, he has reported on issues as diverse as cycling-related court cases, anti-doping investigations, the latest developments in the bike industry and the sport’s biggest races. Now back in London full-time after 15 years living in Oxford and Cambridge, he loves cycling along the Thames but misses having his former riding buddy, Elodie the miniature schnauzer, in the basket in front of him.
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Yes, I'm also interested to see what effect it will have on plate cloning, that's been a thing for years already.
Could you elaborate please?
Somebody sees a similar make & model of vehicle either online or physically to the one they use. They have plates made the same*. They then drive around with gay abandon in a ulez zone (or c charge, speed cameras, car parks, etc). Registered keeper starts getting charges, fines, PCNs and so on through the post over the ensuing months, who in turn spends much of their time communicating with relevant authorities along the lines of "I haven't been to [insert location] for [x] years", hopefully avoiding CCJs and other enforcement action but in some cases, difficult to prove. After a while, the cloned plate will get itself onto the ANPR database, where at best the police will do sod all, and at worst, the owner of the original plate will get pulled over from time to time. At some point the user of the cloned plate will repeat the process with another one, rinse, repeat.
This happened to me in the early 2000s when much of the UK became a speed camera showroom, fortunately I was able to deal with it and it's not happened since. I ended up sending a copy invoice showing I was on site at a customer in Weymouth and couldn't have been in Ilford. Others I know have had the same, mostly car parks and speed cameras but I can see it happening with ulez.
* current legislation says it's "impossible" to have a set of plates made without ID and V5, but that's only "legally made" - you don't have to look that far to acquire other.
Round these parts they have a simpler (and possibly more ethical) solution - just drive around with no plates. Plod doesn't seem to notice or care.
current legislation says it's "impossible" to have a set of plates made without ID and V5, but that's only "legally made" - you don't have to look that far to acquire other
Won't somebody think of the manufacturers of legal number plates? They must be having a thin time of it in Lancashire. And what about the impoverished workers at DVLA- currently unable to even record online VED which has actually been paid since 1st August, presumably because of the lack of cash coming in from VED which hasn't been paid?
Hmm. Ok, thanks
Happened to me too, in the ULEZ era.
I was amazed to find that the various private companies managing parking and LTN penalties were entirely reasonable. I sent them photographs of my car which was the same make, model, and a similar colour to the at least two cloned vehicles, but with subtle differences, and they cancelled the penalties immediately.
The DVLA and the Met Police on the other hand were each keen to insist that it was nothing to do with them, and the other would sort it out l.
Had similar happen to me once. Thankfully they actually stole my plates (rather than clone them) so I already had a crime reference before the charges started arriving, and they put them on a totally different car.
It's certainly had an effect on plate cleaning in London, very common to see gleaming BMWs and Mercedes with absolutely filthy indecipherable numberplates.
I own a few properties in London and have sold quite a few over the years. Schools influence price more than anything - in my experience. And also LTNs push up house prices. In the 'old days' they were called quiet roads or no through roads. But if there is considerable through traffic then prices Go down. But anyone can see that.
But..."15 minute cities are an evil plot"
Why would it? Its not very expensive to have a car that meets the spec.
Sigh
It's good to see that the closer they get to power, the more that Labour avoids upsetting the Daily Mail. Come next year they'll have swung far enough to the right that they will be indistinguishable from the current Tory party.
Tory-lite
To quote George Galloway "Two cheeks of the same arse."
And our man Georgeous George in the middle...
Still, did enjoy him sticking it to Alastair Campbell and the warmongers in the US back when - though they'd sunk so far it was impossible not to micturate on them from a height.
I don't agree with everything he says but I do enjoy listening. A great orator and as you say, his performance in the US Senate (they probably expected a slam-dunk owning a British MP) was a masterpiece.
Your powers of observation must be more acute than mine: I can detect no difference now.
Everyone rolls out this old saw whenever Labour looks in danger of actually winning an election, but in the post-Thatcher era it hasn't come close to winning when (1983 and 2019 spring most readily to mind) it has run on a manifesto it has promoted as markedly left-wing.
People don't vote, in the right numbers or places, for left-wing parties at general elections at the moment (a nigh-on 50-year moment). You can blame this on the media or FFP or working-class false consciousness, but that doesn't change the results according to the rules we currently have. If Labour wants to win (and for the first time in a while it looks like it does), it needs to appeal to voters who rightly or wrongly are wary of 70s-80s-style "loony left" antics. That means capturing at least some of the actual centre ground, even if that is to the right of the centre of middle-class Labour people on the internet (and I am one of them).
Galloway is a repulsive grifter currently pandering to Islamists for money and influence, and his knack for turning a phrase disguises that. A centrist Labour is not the same as the Tories: it's better, even if it's not as good as people like us/me say we want. Howard and Hague would have led worse governments than Blair did. Major did lead a worse government than Kinnock would have. And another Sunak government will be worse than a Starmer one would be.
There's a real choice, and it's a meaningful one for people (mostly not us) who will be at the sharp end. Fake nostalgia and pretended idealism can deliver yet another Tory government if we're not careful, and we'll learn the hard way that one of the cheeks is considerably smellier than the other.
“Labour is not in favour of extra burdens on drivers during a Tory-made cost of living crisis”
...but will be in favour, after the election...?
Even if they were interested (they apparently aren't) likely too busy dealing with grumpy populace (strikes, protests), debts (Brexit, pandemic payback, Ukraine) and rising costs (inflation, Ukraine again). Any spare time will presumably be spent replacing the dark blue furniture left behind by the previous folks and replacing it with
redless blue stuff.But they'll see the income from it, and eagerly welcome it into their coffers
Just as the Tories (who are of course against the war on the motorist) presumably welcomed the funds into the TfL coffers from the extension of the operation of the congestion charge, extension of the ULEZ to the North and South Circular and the now abandoned plan to impose a boundary entry charge on cars visitng London, all conditions they imposed on TfL in return for bailout funding to cover the 90% fares shortfall in the pandemic.
For sure - I'm not expressing a preference for either party. Just being cynical about the political motives, in general. It's this pussyfooting around which has prevented anti-pollution action from being taken earlier and now that more Draconian action is taken (in an attempt to catch up) the public are - somewhat understandably - upset, so the politicians double down on the pussyfooting, in a desperate attempt to gain power.
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