Khan ‘shelves plans to charge fossil fuel cars driving into central London’

Sadiq Khan has shelved plans to potentially charge all combustion-engined cars driving into central London, it has been reported, after he spent Tuesday defending the expansion of the ultra-low emission zone (Ulez).

Proposals outlined in the Mayor’s 2018 transport strategy for a “zero emission zone” in the heart of the capital have been dropped, the Financial Times reported.

A spokesperson for the Mayor’s Office told the paper: “TfL continues to support boroughs who wish to implement zero emission zones in their local areas.”

The apparent shift away from the plans comes after London became the world’s largest pollution charging area after Ulez was expanded to include the whole of the capital.

People who drive in the zone in a vehicle that does not meet minimum emissions standards are now required to pay a £12.50 daily fee or risk a £180 fine, reduced to £90 if paid within 14 days.

Mr Khan has faced opposition to the scheme, although a £160 million scheme run by Transport for London (TfL) enables residents, small businesses, sole traders and charities scrapping non-compliant cars to claim grants.

Speaking on GB News on Tuesday morning, Transport Secretary Mark Harper said he would stop the rollout if he had the power to do so and highlighted his reservations about the true motives behind the expansion.

The Transport Secretary insisted the scheme was a “money-raising exercise” rather than a green initiative and but said he was unable to intervene.

He told LBC the Government will be backing an amendment to the Levelling-Up and Regeneration Bill to make changes to the 1999 law that created the role of mayor of London.

Mr Harper said: “One of the problems here is that a number of London local authorities don’t support this scheme coming into force, so for the future, we are backing an amendment, a backbench amendment to a piece of legislation which will mean in future any road user charging schemes like this would have to be also backed by London boroughs.

“And that’s important because if you look at the mayor of London’s own website for his Project 2030 scheme, he wants to roll out more road user charging schemes, pay-per-mile schemes across London.”

“If this was about making money, I’d have acceded to the demand from the Government to expand the congestion charge much wider than it currently is. That would have been a cash grab, but I said no.

Mr Khan and supporters of the scheme argue it will prevent premature deaths from pollution and clean up the capital’s air, with any revenues being used to reinvest in public transport.

TfL have predicted there will be no additional money made in several years’ time because the number of non-compliant vehicles will fall, Mr Khan said.

“But it’s no secret that the Government, transport officials in London and around the country, have been looking at it for some time, in relation to a smarter, streamlined service for a variety of reasons, not least because the Government are worried about fuel revenues drying up over the course of the next few years.

“In fact, Boris Johnson, when he was the mayor of London – remember him? – in his transport strategy there was talk about a pay-per-mile scheme.

“When Rishi Sunak was chancellor he asked his Treasury officials to look into these schemes.”

Mr Harper later told the Telegraph the mayor should give drivers a “grace period”, which the paper reported would effectively mean fines were not levied on motorists who drove into the newly-expanded zone on Tuesday and for a period after that, allowing more time to adapt to the changes.

To comply with Ulez standards, petrol cars must generally have been first registered after 2005, while most diesel cars registered after September 2015 are also exempt from the charge.

Separate figures obtained by the RAC show more than 690,000 licensed cars in the whole of London are likely to be non-compliant.

However, City Hall claims the RAC data is out of date and inaccurate.