My hon. Friend describes the similarities. A clean air zone is being imposed on hard-working people in my constituency—taxi drivers and construction workers, who are having to pay up to £50 a day to enter Bradford city. It is a completely outrageous tax on hard-working people, and I urge Bradford’s Labour-run council to rethink the proposals and perhaps take a leaf out of Andy Burnham’s book, delay the implementation and consider that. In my view, the strategy will not work in its current format.
When there is disenfranchisement and disengagement, with a council area being too large, the consequences can be devastating. Public trust in councillors and council officers is eroded. Levels of uniform engagement across the whole area become weaker and levels of identification or affinity between the electorate and the council officers become weaker again. Of course, across Bradford district, we see exactly that.