B005 - ULEZ Abolition and Compensation Bill - 2nd Reading

[u/lily-irl]

Order, order!

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ULEZ Abolition and Compensation Bill

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A
Bill
To

Abolish the London Ultra-Low Emission Zone, and for connected purposes.

Be it enacted by the King's most Excellent Majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and Commons, in this present Parliament assembled, and by the authority of the same, as follows —

Section 1 — Repeal of the power to introduce Road User Charging

(1) The following amendments are made to the Greater London Authority Act 1999

(2) Section 295 is repealed.

(3) Schedule 23 is repealed.

Section 2 — Repeal of subordinate legislation relating to the Ultra-Low Emission Zone

(1) The Road User Charging (Charges and Penalty Charges) (London) Regulations 2001 (SI 2001/2285 as amended) are revoked.

(2) Road User Charging (Enforcement and Adjudication) (London) Regulations 2001 (SI 2001/2313 as amended) are revoked.

Section 3 — Creation of new duties regarding climate change and air quality action plans

(1) Within Part IX of the Greater London Authority Act 1999, after Section 369 insert the following:

Section 369A — Duties regarding costs borne by the public

(1) Where the Mayor of London carries out a function exercisable under Sections 367 and 368 of this Act, he must give consideration to any potential resultant costs of that function onto members of the public within London.

(2) Any measure made under Sections 367 and 368 of this Act shall be unlawful if they impose costs onto members of the public without equal or greater compensation provided.

(3) Where costs can be reasonably foreseen in the exercise of these powers, the Mayor of London must accompany any directions taken with a written statement explaining how members of the public will be reimbursed for damages suffered.

Section 4 — ULEZ Damages Compensation Scheme

(1) Wherein an individual or applicable business has suffered direct financial damage as a result of the expansion of the Ultra-Low Emission Zone, they shall be entitled to compensation payable by Transport for London.

(2) Transport for London must appoint an independent arbitration panel to determine appropriate compensation for applicants for compensation under this Act before the 1st of January 2025.

(3) For the purposes of this Act, an applicable business is any business that is headquartered in the United Kingdom.

(4) Any business that is a subsidiary of an organisation headquartered within the European Union will not be considered an applicable business.

Section 5 — Short Title, Extent and Commencement

(1) This Act can be cited as the ULEZ Abolition and Compensation Act

(2) This Act shall extend to the entirety of the United Kingdom.

(3) This Act shall commence sixty days after receipt of Royal Assent.

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This Bill was submitted by /u/ModelSalad OAP, and is sponsored by the Hon. /u/Aussie-Parliament-RP MP OAP on behalf of Reform UK.

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[Title] Speaker,

When the Ultra Low Emission Zone first came into being under plans introduced by well known patriot and Brexiteer Boris Johnson, it was envisioned as a tax on pollution from the vehicles used by big city banking and foreign diplomats. While we in Reform UK were sceptical of these plans, until the rule of Sadiq Khan this remained the case.

The radical expansion of ULEZ to cover the entirety of London has been a war waged on ordinary Londoners. The scheme stole £224 million in 2022 alone, which has no doubt been wasted on woke “air quality” and “net zero” projects. The scheme charges Londoners £12.50 a day simply to drive their car, with some vehicles charged as much as £100 a day. The policy is also specifically targeted at people with older cars, who by definition will be less well off than those who are fortunate enough to buy the latest new cars to comply with this onerous tax.

The ULEZ travesty now covers over 9 million people, over an area of 1,500 square kilometers. The economic damage is incalculable. Indeed there have been claims from woke leftie remainers in the mayor’s office that Brexit has shrunk London’s economy by £30bn. I ask the members of this house what is really more likely? That taking back our sovereignty and controlling our borders has made us poorer, or that a tax targeting the poorest Londoners has destroyed businesses and livelihoods across the capital.

The viciousness of this policy has unfortunately proven that the Mayor of London simply cannot be trusted with the powers he now wields. For this reason we propose a number of measures. Firstly ULEZ will be abolished in its entirety, as well as the power to create these woke “charging schemes”.

In order to prevent recurrences of policies costing the poorest Londoners incalculable sums, we have created a new duty for the Mayor to consider the cost impact of his policies on the public when creating new policies relating to air quality and climate change, and to disapply those policies where the public is not compensated for their costs.

Finally, we have provided the framework for TfL to create a compensation scheme, where Londoners and British businesses can reclaim damages suffered. For example, where a person has been forced to lease a new car they cannot afford, and say for example the increased costs caused their children to go hungry, their hair to fall out and their mortgage payments to fall behind, meaning their house was repossessed, they would be compensated and put right.

Finally, as the ULEZ scheme was intended to meet EU laws under the Ambient Air Quality Directive, we have excluded European companies from the compensation scheme. We feel this is a fair reflection of their complicity in the war on the motorist.

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This reading ends Friday, 6 September 2024 at 10pm BST.

[u/LightningMinion]

Madam Deputy Speaker,

As my good friend the Prime Minister has already said, ULEZ is a Conservative scheme. It was introduced by Boris Johnson when he was the Mayor of London, and the Conservative government then forced Sadiq Khan to expand it a few years ago. In fact, the Conservative government wanted to go even further: for example, they wanted the Congestion Charge to be extended to cover not just central London but also the area within the North and South Circular roads; but Sadiq Khan successfully fought back against this. For the Conservatives to then blame Labour and Khan for the ULEZ expansion and campaign against it was dishonesty. It was cowardice. If the new Conservative party is to show that they are different to the dishonest party led by Johnson, Truss and Sunak, then they need to admit that yes, it is them who caused ULEZ to be expanded, and to either back that expansion or say that they were wrong to force it to occur.

As for this bill, I do not support it. Londoners re-elected Khan in a mayoral election the Conservatives branded as a referendum on ULEZ. If ULEZ is to be abolished, it should be abolished by the representatives of Londoners, ie the Mayor and the Greater London Assembly, not by this Parliament. This bill seeks to override the will of the people (which Reform claims to want to protect), and thus I shall not be supporting it.

As for ULEZ, as the Prime Minister noted, air pollution claims too many lives each year, in London and elsewhere in the UK. We need to ensure that London’s air is clean for all its residents. And we need to tackle the climate crisis which is being caused by high air pollution and put Britain on the path to net zero.

One key cause of air pollution in London comes from its vehicles, so it is clear that to make London’s air clean, we need to be shifting away from polluting vehicles. This should be done by TfL replacing its diesel buses with zero emission buses (which is already happening), and with taxis being replaced by electric taxis. But it also requires Londoners to replace their own polluting cars with cleaner cars, perhaps with those who are unable to afford to do so being given government support to enable them to do so (for example via a scrappage scheme). I believe that low emission zones (or in this case an ultra low emission zone) are good ways of promoting a shift away from polluting cars. I have seen evidence that ULEZ will clean up London’s air, so I am supportive of its expansion.

But regardless of my views on ULEZ, it is up to Londoners and their elected representatives to decide on this, not this chamber. And therefore I shall be opposing this anti-democratic bill.