London Mayor Sadiq Khan today insisted there are no plans to rollout a ‘pay-per-mile’ scheme for drivers in the capital, branding any claims ‘categorically wrong’.
He had faced a furious backlash after roads minister Robert Holden told MPs Mr Khan had ordered officials to look at introducing the scheme, in what critics branded the latest offensive in the mayor’s war on drivers.
Outraged Londoners accused Mr Khan of ‘ruining’ the city with yet another ‘money-grabbing’ scheme, following on from Ultra Low Emission Zone (Ulez), congestion charge, 20mph speed limits and low-traffic neighbourhoods – which have clobbered drivers with more than £500million in penalties.
The Labour mayor had previously hinted London could see a Singapore-style system, where sensors on gantries would spy on motorists, charging drivers more for travelling at peak times.
Tory MP Mr Holden claimed he had been told by deputy mayor Seb Dance, that in anticipation of plummeting Ulez revenues as more Londoners switch to less polluting vehicles, Mr Khan had asked transport chiefs ‘to investigate the technicalities of introducing road charging across London in the future’.
But City Hall today rubbished the claims, with a spokesman for the mayor telling MailOnline: ‘This is categorically wrong. Officials actually told the minister the opposite – there is no prospect of it being introduced in the foreseeable future.’
Drivers in London have already faced a series of traffic schemes that critics say are penalising city motorists, from the Ulez and low-traffic neighbourhoods, to the congestion charge and 20mph speed zones
London mayor Sadiq Khan (pictured) has told officials to draw up a new road-pricing scheme
The Ultra Low Emission Zone (Ulez) currently covers the area inside the North and South Circular roads, but the Mayor intends to expand it across all of Greater London on August 29
Confusion over the plans ignited a wave of outrage, with Mr Khan being branded ‘a dictator’. While Hugh Blandon, founder of the Alliance of British Divers, said mayor’s war on motorists was turning the capital into a ‘hopeless’ place for those using a car.
He told MailOnline: ‘I can’t believe this hatred of people who drive the car. It’s like they somehow think that anyone behind the wheel is a devil with horns coming out of their heads and that they need to be used as cash cows to make life as miserable as possible for them.
‘London has a mayor who seems to be hellbent against drivers. I can’t begin to describe how awful he is. He is making the city of London hopeless.’
City drivers were also in uproar, with one person raging: ‘Most people will literally not be able to afford to get to work, hospital appointments etc. This evil little dictator needs to be stopped.’ While another tweeted: ‘You have been warned – he is ruining London.’
Other Londoners expressed their outrage at how motorists continued to be penalised for owning a car, with one person adding: ‘How can this latest proposal be legal when we already pay road tax, congestion charge and Ulez? You are simply a money-grabber.’
The Mayor’s office has insisted that the technology to replace existing road charges with any single scheme were many years away.
The outcry came as MPs accused the mayor of trying to ‘shut London down’ amid fears the initiative could be introduced to the entire Greater London area, echoing his Ulez scheme.
The £12.50 daily Ulez charge is set to be expanded to all London boroughs on August 29. It applies to cars that do not meet strict environmental standards.
Tory minister Mr Holden told MPs he met senior officials at Transport for London (TfL), where Mr Khan is chairman, on Tuesday.
Tory MP Greg Smith (pictured) called Sadiq Khan’s plans ‘another slap in the face from a Labour mayor’
The £12.50 daily Ulez charge is set to be expanded to all London boroughs next month
People demonstrate outside the High Court, central London, where five Conservative-led councils to challenge the decision to expand the Ulez zone last Tuesday
He said: ‘They informed me that the mayor of London, in anticipation of falling revenues from the Ulez in the future – in the next few years – had asked them to investigate the technicalities of introducing road charging across London in the future.’
MailOnline has approached Mr Holden’s office for comment.
Ministers see road pricing as one way of plugging the growing hole in the public finances due to more people switching to electric cars, which are exempt from road tax.
Pure electric cars don’t run on petrol or diesel so fuel duty receipts are also falling. Road tax and fuel duty are worth more than £30billion to the Treasury every year.
Tory MP Greg Smith said: ‘I think we do have to have a debate in this country about how, when petrol and diesel is no more, you fill the shortfall from motoring taxes.
‘But for Sadiq Khan to try to do it unilaterally, without Treasury involvement, when there’s still full throttle fuel duty, vehicle excise duty and his own Ulez and congestion charges in place, it’s yet another slap in the face from a Labour mayor. He… is doing his best to shut London down.’
The Ulez scheme has proven hugely controversial, with critics claiming it does little to improve air quality and has a negative impact on families and tradespeople who need to drive.
It was launched in April 2019 by Transport for London (TfL) – the capital’s transport authority – to cover the same area as the Congestion Charge zone in Central London – before being expanded in October 2021 to include the area within the North and South Circular roads.
Mr Khan now plans to expand it on August 29 to cover all of Greater London, with new borders reaching Buckinghamshire, Essex, Hertfordshire, Kent and Surrey.
It’s anticipated that the rollout could bring in an additional £200million into the city’s coffers in the first 12 months.
The 52-year-old mayor developed adult-onset asthma nine years ago and blames it on decades of breathing the capital’s poor air.
It comes as the Government’s fiscal watchdog predicts that Britain’s switch to electric cars will leave a £13billion hole in public finances by 2030 as tax receipts from fuel duty fall.
The Office for Budget Responsibility said it was by far the biggest single cost of the Government’s target to achieve a ‘net-zero’ carbon economy by 2050.
It comes after it was revealed earlier this week that only one per cent of non-Ulez compliant vehicles have been approved for the Mayor Of London’s flagship scrappage scheme, which sees grants handed out to scrap or retrofit vehicles.
Just 8,973 of an estimated 851,000 non-compliant vehicles around London had scrappage scheme applications approved by the end of June, Transport for London figures revealed.
Tory MP Louie French accused Mr Khan of failing working-class Londoners in light of the data.
He said: ‘Not only is the Labour Mayor of London taxing people £12.50 per day or £4,500 per year to drive, but for the relatively small number of people eligible for the scrappage scheme, which will only cover a small fraction of the costs of changing vehicle, the Mayor is failing badly to get much needed support out to them.
‘As TfL’s own figures show, the Mayor is badly failing all Londoners, including disabled people, charities and small businesses.
‘In a rare moment of consistency, he also has the full support of Keir Starmer, who like many north London champagne socialists, clearly isn’t that bothered about the concerns of working people.’
Meanwhile former Prime Minister Boris Johnson said in his column for The Daily Mail last Saturday that the policy is ‘doomed’.
He wrote: ‘If the Labour leader and the Labour candidate won’t back the Labour mayor’s driving tax, then isn’t it time for Khan to can it?’
And last week five Tory-led councils – Bexley, Bromley, Harrow, Hillingdon and Surrey – told the High Court that Mr Khan ‘lacks the legal capital’ to expand Ulez throughout the whole of the capital.
The court heard that the controversial scheme was owed more money than it made last year.
Drivers refused to pay penalty notices, leaving Ulez with a £255million black hole in its accounts, The Telegraph reported.
The rebellion from motorists has been described as a ‘drivers’ revolt’ against the charges.
In a legal first in 2021, a coroner ruled that poor air quality from vehicle emissions made a ‘material contribution’ to the death of a nine-year-old London girl who suffered a severe asthma attack.
London’s Ulez mirrors similar low-emission zones to improve air quality in more than 200 cities in ten countries across Europe.
Petrol cars registered before 2006 and diesel vehicles first registered before September 2015 are unlikely to meet the minimum emissions standards required.
The outer-London boroughs of Bexley, Bromley, Harrow and Hillingdon along with Surrey County Council launched legal action in February over the proposed extension of Ulez beyond the North and South Circular roads
Council representatives including Teresa O’Neill from Bexley Council (far left) and Matt Furniss from Surrey County Council (far right) at the High Court last week for their Ulez case
Signage indicates the boundary of the Ulez scheme beside the South Circular Road in London
Protesters gather for a demonstration against the Ulez expansion on London Bridge on May 27
Transport for London estimates that fewer than 200,000 such vehicles currently enter the new zone each day, based on existing Ulez camera analysis.
But the RAC motoring group used a freedom of information request to discover that more than 850,000 ineligible vehicles are registered in London alone.
In March, Mr Khan claimed that ‘anti-vaxxers, Covid deniers, conspiracy theorists and Nazis’ had joined ‘decent Tories’ in opposing the Ulez expansion.
He also branded some Ulez opponents ‘far-Right’ at a public meeting in Ealing, west London, earlier that month.
Mr Khan’s comments at the time sparked outrage, with Conservative Party chairman Greg Hands calling for him to be voted out in the next election.
The estimated costs to set up the expanded London-wide Ulez – due to come into force on August 29 – are between £130million and £140million.
TfL estimates that the London-wide Ulez could generate up to £200million a year for the first two years following the expansion in August, but this will fall to about £50million in 2025/26.
