Transport Secretary Mark Harper has told The Daily Telegraph that Sadiq Khan’s re-election as Mayor of London will not deter him from “continuing to stand up” for drivers.
“Our opposition to Sadiq Khan’s Ulez expansion remains the same, his own impact assessment said it would have a ‘minor to negligible’ effect on air quality so it was clearly just an unfair tax on the poorest motorists,” he said.
“The network of cameras required for his Ulez expansion lays the ground for the Labour mayor’s pay-per-mile road pricing plans, another tax on those for whom driving is a lifeline – from the nurse, care worker or police officer driving into London for their night shift, to the small business owner or trader who needs their van to get from A to B.”
Mr Harper said that Londonders have been at the “sharp end” of schemes such as Ulez that have ended up “penalising those who drive”. “Drivers should not be seen as ‘cash cows’, which is why as part of our plan we have launched a call for evidence to assess how we could restrict the ability of councils to profit from the over-zealous use of traffic enforcement powers,” he added.
