The point still stands that vehicle excise duty could be an answer to TfL’s financial woes; or, indeed, the Government could reach into their pockets and give our country support, bearing in mind what we have said about that £40 billion. When London does well, the entire country does well. If we can boost our economy and come out of this awful pandemic, London succeeding will also help millions of other people across the country to succeed as well.
As I have already made clear, no decisions have been taken on this scheme. In fact, no scheme has even been designed. Let us be clear: no scheme whatsoever has been designed and no decisions have been taken on the charge level, exemptions or hours of operation. As we all know, with the election just weeks away, Conservative Members here today are doing their best to whip up this issue and spread fake news. Londoners—in fact, their own constituents—deserve far better.
Let us talk about the facts. Every weekday, 1.3 million vehicle trips are made from outside London to the capital, burdening local communities with traffic and emissions. Of those 1.3 million vehicle trips, around 1 million are made to outer London. TfL informs me that prior to the pandemic, car journeys made by residents within outer London had been in decline in recent years, whereas car journeys to outer London from outside the boundary—in other words, by non-London residents—had been increasing over the same period.
What this all comes down to is the more fundamental choices about what has to be done. Do we all want a well-funded public transport system, with a diverse range of income streams so that it is not entirely reliant on fares, or do we think that it is acceptable to cut services, because otherwise that is where we are headed? Cutting services at a time when we are trying to incentivise people back to using public transport, as they return to work after having their vaccination and the economy begins to move again, would be completely and utterly counterproductive.
When it is safe to do so, we want people to enjoy everything that our capital has to offer. However, if they think that they will be packed in like sardines and that passengers will be rammed in—perhaps from Newbury Park in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Ilford North, as I have experienced many times—they will not want to get on tubes or buses. They did not like that pre-pandemic and they certainly will not like it now.
I have also heard the argument that if fewer people are travelling because they are working from home, we should put up fares. That is clearly the preference of the Transport Secretary, who forced the Mayor of London to increase fares this year in order to access emergency financial support. The rest of us know, however, that if we price people off the public transport network, we run the risk of forcing them to use cars.
I also find it interesting to hear Tory MPs express outrage today, given what their own Transport Secretary said just last September, in a letter he sent to the Mayor of London:
“Given the significant rise in congestion in inner London, we also propose the extension of the central London congestion charging zone to cover the same area as the Ultra Low Emission Zone…and at the same time, October 2021.”
That would have been an extreme and unacceptable proposal, on the basis of what colleagues have said here today. It would also have meant that every journey
within the huge area bounded by the north and south circular roads would have cost £15, in addition to the expanded ULEZ charge coming in from October this year, and all at a time when families and small businesses are still reeling from the covid crisis.
It was clearly totally wrong to suggest hitting Londoners with such an increase in charges, just as we are, hopefully, recovering from a pandemic. That is why the Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, was right to reject it and right to stand up for Londoners. I stress again that even if a decision were taken to proceed with a Greater London boundary charge for non-London residents, it would take at least two years to implement. It is a last-ditch option, forced on TfL by the Government’s failure to provide long-term funding, which is the key issue.
Let me turn to a point I made earlier on the real reason for TfL’s current predicament. It was a Conservative Government under Chancellor George Osborne and the current Prime Minister, when he was Mayor of London, who agreed to the withdrawal of the direct operating grant. The then Mayor’s decision meant that the network became almost completely reliant on fare revenue, unlike comparable transport authorities in any other global city across the western world. When fares subsequently slumped because the covid lockdown meant no one was travelling, TfL’s income collapsed almost overnight. It is thanks to Conservative decisions in the past that TfL is left between a rock and a hard place, with no easy choices for the Mayor and TfL, having to fix the Tories’ mess and raise the vast amount of money required to make up that shortfall.
To add insult to injury, it is yet again a Conservative Government who are more determined than ever to force through a new era of cuts and the retrenchment of transport in the capital. That is unacceptable. The Mayor, TfL and businesses are united in knowing that would be completely counterproductive. Our capital city, whose economic contribution benefits the rest of the country immensely, is so much more dependent on public transport than elsewhere in the country.
The Government hold all the cards here. On behalf of all Londoners, I urge them to once and for all stop the politicking, put their hands in their pockets, properly fund our capital’s public transport network and allow London to keep its share of VED. If the Government fail to act, my advice to Conservative MPs here today and colleagues across London, including those who have spoken, is to direct their anger to the Transport Secretary and this Government. It is they alone who should carry the can. I have not heard one single word from them about an alternative. Their silence speaks volumes. London deserves better; indeed, Britain deserves an awful lot better.
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