1:57 pm, February 23, 2023
The prime minister has been urged to launch a car scrappage scheme ahead of the planned expansion of London’s ultra low emission zone (Ulez).
The pressure comes from the Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, who’d like the government to fund the scheme for people living in location such as Surrey and Kent.
Such a scheme would give financial support for car owners who drive in London in the most polluting vehicles to scrap or retrofit them.
He also called on Rishi Sunak to match the £110m he has allocated for London’s scrappage scheme.
Khan is planning to expand the Ulez to cover the whole of London from August 29 to boost air quality, with a £12.50 daily fee for vehicles not meeting minimum standards.
This has met fierce resistance from several councils, with five mounting a legal challenge partly based on the scrappage scheme.
In a letter, Khan urged the prime minister to ‘become a doer, rather than a delayer, when it comes to climate action’.
He explained that several areas introducing clean air zones have received government funding for scrapping non-compliant vehicles – such as Greater Manchester (£120m), Bristol (£42m), Birmingham (£38m) and Bradford (£30m) – but London and the home counties ‘have not received even a penny of support’.
The mayor wrote: ‘I urge you to use some of the unexpected £30bn windfall in the public finances to not only match the funding allocated for scrappage in London, but to introduce a targeted scrappage scheme that provides help to those based in the home counties.’
He went on: ‘London, the south east and the east of England make net contributions to the Treasury every year, and Londoners pay £500m of vehicle excise yearly, which is then spent on maintaining roads in other parts of the country.
‘For our regions to pay in so much and not be helped to reduce carbon emissions and make our air safer to breathe is unfair and doesn’t make sense.’
For diesel cars and vans to avoid the Ulez charge they must generally have been registered from September 2015, while most petrol models registered after 2005 are exempt.
London’s scrappage scheme for vehicles that do not comply with the emissions standards includes payments of up to £2,000 for eligible drivers such as those on low incomes or the disabled scrapping a car, and up to £9,500 for charities, sole traders and small businesses scrapping or retrofitting vans and minibuses.
Home counties residents are not eligible for the initiative.
Khan wrote that London is ‘in the grip of a deadly public health crisis’, with toxic air ‘causing the premature deaths of an estimated 4,000 Londoners every year’.
He continued: ‘It is abundantly clear then that the cost of inaction is far too high and that further action is needed to safeguard public health and spare people unnecessary suffering.
‘I’m simply not prepared to stand idly by while toxic fumes from highly polluting vehicles choke our communities and leave our children reaching for inhalers and gasping for air.
‘That’s why I’ve chosen to expand the ultra low emission zone London-wide.’
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