On January 17, Conservative Party London Assembly Member Nick Rogers lodged a formal complaint with the Greater London Authority Monitoring Officer against London Mayor Sadiq Khan after internal communication seemed to contradict remarks made by Khan on the issue of Khan’s involvement in expanding Ultra Low Emission Zone (ULEZ) across all of Greater London.
The mayor has decided to expand London’s Ultra-low emission zone, which will impose a daily charge of £12.50 on vehicles that do not comply with the emission norms and enter the outer limits of the city. It has been alleged that Sadiq Khan manipulated public consultation on ULEZ by deliberately excluding thousands of votes opposing the move.
Khan and his deputy Seb Dance, a former Member of the European Parliament, when pressed repeatedly by Tory assembly members at public sessions, informed the London Assembly that they had not been informed in advance about the ULEZ consultation findings.
An internal email, however, demonstrates that the Mayor was privately consulted on the ULEZ survey findings on September 29th, before to their formal publication. More than 200 pages of confidential correspondence and documentation from the Mayor’s top advisers and TfL (Transport for London) directors during the last weeks of the ULEZ consultation process were recently released.
The Conservatives believe that the Mayor’s administration intervened in the consultation process, skewing the findings and decreasing the percentage of those opposed to Sadiq Khan’s ULEZ extension. According to the reports, given the decision to extend the ULEZ to outside London, vehicles will have to pay £12.50 a day to drive in the city if their vehicle is older than 2015 for diesel and 2005 for petrol.
The records also indicate that thousands of replies were omitted from the final ULEZ consultation findings after an intervention by the Mayor’s senior advisers. The intervention reduced total opposition in the final vote by three percentage points, from 62 per cent to 59 per cent.
Around 5,200 votes from motoring groups were discounted by officials, which allowed mayor Sadiq Khan to declare that there was no overwhelming dissent to the proposal to expand the ULEZ.
Rogers accused Khan of “falsely and dishonestly” tampering with the findings and accused him of “severe misconduct” for violating the integrity of the consultation and unfairly rejecting thousands of valid comments. “The Mayor must now explain himself to Londoners, who participated in this consultation in good faith. This behaviour cannot stand and must be addressed by the appropriate authorities,” he said.
London minister Paul Scully also commented on the issue saying, “These findings are very concerning. If the Mayor is going to push through such a punitive and unpopular policy, he has to have a grip on the detail. The London Assembly is responsible for the oversight of the Mayor of London. It can and should investigate this further.”
However, spokesperson of Khan maintained that Khan was not informed on its progress and only made decisions after the final report. “The real scandal is that toxic air leads to the death of thousands of Londoners every year, which is why the Mayor took the difficult decision to expand the ULEZ London-wide. The Mayor made the decision after considering TfL’s full final report on the consultation responses,” he said.
“The consultation was not a referendum, however, TfL made a number of modifications to the scheme following feedback received in the consultation. This included addressing cost of living concerns with a £110m scrappage scheme for low-income Londoners and extending the exemptions for disabled Londoners,” he added.
According to him, TfL takes its responsibilities to hold thorough and legally compliant consultations very seriously, with an independent consultant putting together the final analysis and report, and any claim that TfL or the Mayor tried to influence the ULEZ consultation findings is just false. “As part of a rigorous consultation process, it was right for TfL to seek responses from as wide a range of Londoners as possible, including young Londoners, whose lives will be affected by air pollution for years to come,” the spokesperson of Khan was quoted as saying.
Reportedly, British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak also criticised Sadiq Khan for imposing a tax on a public which does not want it. “Expanding this zone is not something that communities want and I look forward to working with him to urge the Mayor to properly consider and respond to all these views and stop this unfair tax,” he said at Prime Minister’s Question Hour on Wednesday.
Reports mention that at least two London councils are presently opposing to Transport for London deploying the cameras required to police the ultra-low emission zone on their roadways. Politicians on all sides agree that the issue will play a significant role in the next mayoral election, when Khan seeks a record third term.