Don’t ‘clobber’ Londoners with ULEZ, Rachel Reeves says
Now is not the right time to “clobber” Londoners with the ULEZ charge, Labour shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves has said.
The shadow chancellor has weighed in on the ultra low emission zone (ULEZ) expansion row engulfing City Hall and Labour politics in the wake of the Uxbridge by-election defeat.
She told the Sun she was concerned about the timing, coinciding with ongoing economic and inflationary woes and a cost of living crisis battering Brits.
Reeves said: “With the cost of living, it doesn’t feel like the right time to clobber people with extra charges.”
The charge, which is set to be rolled out across all of Greater London’s 32 boroughs, will see drivers of vehicles which fail to meet emissions standards slapped with a daily £12.50 fee or risk being fined in a bid to clean up the city’s levels of air pollution and its health impacts.
ULEZ ‘on doorstep’
The policy has proven extremely divisive. Labour candidate Danny Beales was forced to distance himself from the policy during the campaign in Boris Johnson’s former west London seat of Uxbridge and South Ruislip but ultimately lost to local councillor Steve Tuckwell who pitched himself as the anti-ULEZ voice.
Reeves noted the policy was one that “came up on the doorstep all the time”.
“The richest people are able to upgrade their car every two or three years… it’s a tax on people with older cars, it’s not a progressive tax.”
Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer told the BBC on Tuesday that he wanted London mayor Sadiq Khan to “reflect” on his commitment to expanding the policy from August.
City Hall sources have said the mayor is open to “new ideas” on how to mitigate the impact of the charge on Londoners.