The politics of ULEZ
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00:00 On August 29th, London's ultra-low emission zone was expanded to cover the whole of the capital,
00:05 meaning all drivers will have to pay a £12.50 daily charge if their vehicles do not meet emission standards.
00:13 I'm Rafe Blackburn, National World's Politics Editor, and I'll be telling you why the row over the EULES
00:19 could have implications far wider than just the capital.
00:22 The EULES was first announced by former London Mayor and Prime Minister Boris Johnson in 2015,
00:29 so despite the current opposition, it was in fact initially a conservative policy.
00:36 It wasn't, however, implemented until 2019 by Sadiq Khan.
00:41 It first covered the congestion zone area in central London, then it expanded in 2021 to the north and south circular,
00:49 and now, as we previously heard, it covers the whole of London.
00:54 That is naturally why we've seen some of the biggest opposition to Khan's expansion in these areas,
01:01 as people are more reliant on using their cars to get around.
01:04 Public transport gets worse, particularly when travelling around out of London,
01:08 instead of just going into and out of central London.
01:12 The reason why these local authorities, mayors and devolved governments are bringing in these cleaner zones
01:21 is because the central government in Westminster has given a legal obligation to mayors like Sadiq Khan
01:29 and local authorities to bring down the pollution levels in those cities.
01:35 In fact, in London, City Hall estimated that 4,000 people died in 2019 with causes linked to air pollution.
01:43 I'm quite clear. For me, clean air is a human right, not a privilege.
01:49 Just like none of us would deem it acceptable to drink dirty water.
01:54 There's been quite a lot more opposition this current time around,
01:58 with several councils actually taking Sadiq Khan and Transport for London to court to try and block the expansion.
02:08 There are four Conservative councils who are taking TfL to court,
02:12 and these four Conservative councils are using taxpayers' money not to provide free school meal for kids,
02:18 not to help clean up the air, but this money's been used to pay for lawyers to bring a case against TfL.
02:24 That was unsuccessful, however, the political pressure did lead to the mayor expanding the scrappage scheme.
02:31 So now any Londoner with a non-compliant car can get £2,000 for scrapping their car and upgrading it to a car that is EULA compliant.
02:41 Earlier in the summer, there was a by-election in Uxbridge and South Ryslip,
02:48 which is one of the areas where the EULA is being expanded to after Boris Johnson resigned.
02:54 This has previously been a safe to receive, however, given the current polls, Labour was expected to win it.
03:00 However, the Conservatives did hold on to it by a very narrow margin, just 500 votes roughly.
03:07 And their candidate, who's now the MP, Steve Tuckwell, basically put his victory solely down to the EULA's expansion.
03:16 It's not only Sunak, though, that was influenced by that by-election result.
03:21 The kind of political chain reaction has also spread to Sakir Starmer,
03:26 who actually tried to get Sadiq Khan to pause the rollout and has also apparently U-turned on the Labour policy of bringing in clean air zones.
03:37 So it's an interesting situation where one by-election, which had around 46% turnout and a Conservative win of around just 500 votes,
03:51 has really ignited this spark around the EULA's, turned it into a huge national debate.
03:57 And it could have implications around the policies we see from both parties on the environment when it comes to the next election.
04:04 Thank you.
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