21 July, 2023. Cleaner air for London will save working class lives but the costs should be borne by the capitalist car industry, not the working class. Just as they bailed out the banks in 2008, central government should purchase all non compliant cars at 2022 market prices, to prevent speculation.
The congestion charge introduced in central London in 2003 was effective in reducing traffic
and pollution. The zone operates at peak traffic hours daily – outside those hours there is no congestion charge. The 24-hour 2019 ultra-low emission zone (ULEZ) within the north and south circular area further reduced pollution in central London, although the full impact of this is difficult to assess in light of the pandemic and subsequent growth of home-working.
But the August 31st extension of the the London 24-hour ULEZ to the M25 will place a huge burden on London’s working class, who mostly live in this area and have few public transport alternatives. The ULEZ extension applies to petrol vehicles registered before 2006 and diesel vehicles before 2015. Londoners with older vehicles must pay £12.50 per day to drive within the M25.
While the Tories are castigating Labour Mayor Sadiq Khan as a wedge issue to desperately salvage electoral carnage, the ULEZ charge was actually introduced by Boris Johnson and its extension was force on Khan by Tory Transport Minister Grant Shapps as a condition for continued TFL public transport funding.
Labour’s failure to win the Uxbridge & Ruislip by-election was blamed on the unpopularity of the extension of the ULEZ, despite Labour having failed to point out during the campaign that this was a Tory policy imposed on Londoners for political gain. Since that result both Labour and the Tories have expressed doubts about the scheme with Starmer pressurising Khan to ‘reflect’ on the roll-out to outer London.
The dumping of climate change policies for political expediency is further proof that neither the Tories nor Labour have a credible approach to tackling the climate emergency. The objective to remove more polluting vehicles from the roads is a good one, but the costs of implementation have fallen on the poorest who are most likely to have, and least able to afford to replace, their cars and vans.
People who cannot afford to upgrade their vehicles to ULEZ-compliance include those reliant on their vehicles for work; delivery drivers, care workers, taxi-drivers, shift workers and so on. Many of these workers are in low-paid precarious employment. It also affects people on low and fixed incomes such as the elderly and disabled who may only use
their vehicles a couple of times a week and for whom upgrading is out of the question financially.
The £2,000 scrappage scheme does not offer sufficient to replace non-compliant vehicles. Nor has there been any comparison of the environmental consequences of scrapping otherwise sound vehicles and replacing them with new.
By 2023 only 10% of vehicles registered in London did not meet the ULEZ standards, questioning the justification of extending a tax on mobility for London’s poorest workers.
There has been a steady exodus of low-income households from city centres, with many people having to commute long distances for work because of the unaffordability of housing.
Most shift workers cannot get to work on public transport which does not run through the night, or, in the case of night buses, do not run frequently enough to provide a viable alternative to driving. The unaffordability of public transport means for many of the lowest paid who have to travel long distances to work, or need to be mobile for their work are likewise dependent on their vehicles to be able to continue in employment. The ULEZ charge would mean most of these workers losing over an hour’s pay per day just to cover the ULEZ charge.
Public transport alternatives outside the North/South circular are sparse, particularly for West-East routes. Bus and tube fares have more than doubled since the London congestion charge was first introduced and continue to rise at above-inflation rates as government continues to starves public transport of subsidy. Bus and rail frequency has been cut back since Covid, disproportionately affecting the working class who are more dependent on public transport.
The decision to extend the ULEZ scheme London-wide has been met with strong opposition, and has become a rallying call for far-right organisations and has strengthened the Tory councils in London which have legally challenged the scheme. This has been the experience in other areas which have proposed the introduction of a similar scheme, such as Cambridge and Birmingham. In most areas, as with Low Traffic Neighbourhoods these proposals have been implemented with flawed or minimal consultation and inadequate or absent equalities, economic and environmental impact assessments, insufficient mitigation to prevent hardship and an absence of a wider transport strategy designed to meet the needs of the population.
The stated objective of the ULEZ is to reduce pollution. However, London Mayor Sadiq Khan has proceeded, in the face of strong opposition, with the Silvertown Tunnel which will result in a huge increase in LGVs driving through east London, including some of the most polluted parts of the capital and will certainly undermine any progress on air quality as a result of the ULEZ charge.
The Communist Party supports radical action to reduce carbon emissions and to reverse the
existential threat of climate change. The Communist Party does not, however, support the way ULEZ and similar schemes around the country are being implemented as the costs will fall disproportionately on the poorest people in low paid and precarious employment who are dependent on their cars and vans for work, the disabled and the elderly for whom the scrappage scheme is insufficient to enable them to upgrade their vehicles.
The scheme does nothing to address the unaffordability of public transport as a viable
alternative to driving, nor its lack of connectivity and universality which makes public transport an impossible option for many shift workers.
The Communist Party also opposes the imposition of toll charges on the Blackwall Tunnel and other roads which amount to a further tax on people going about their business and will
disproportionately affect those people who have no choice but to cross the river for work or caring purposes. It opposes the development of new roads in favour of an improved public transport network and a modal shift of freight transport from the roads to the railways.
Only by achieving a significant shift of the travelling public and freight from the roads to the railways can we expect to see sustainable reductions in emissions from traffic. This must entail a shift to a 24-hour public transport system with improved connectivity between buses, rail, tram and tube systems, for night services to run sufficiently regularly to meet the needs of shift workers, and for fares to be capped to affordable levels.
Communist Party of Britain 