Lib Dems, Conservatives and Greens at City Hall joined forces to demand doubling of car scrappage fund, reports Noah Vickers, Local Democracy Reporter

City Hall and (inset) Liberal Democrat AM Caroline Pidgeon

A proposal for Sadiq Khan to double the size of his Ultra Low Emission Zone (Ulez) scrappage scheme to £220million has been rejected by Labour politicians at City Hall.

The idea – to drastically boost the size of the fund to help people replace their polluting vehicles – was supported by a majority of London Assembly members, as Liberal Democrats, Conservatives and Greens joined forces to vote for it.

But the proposal needed support from two-thirds of assembly members (AMs) in order to pass, and was voted down by the Labour group.

The amendment to the mayor’s budget, put forward by Liberal Democrat AM Caroline Pidgeon, would have required Khan to double the size of the £110m scrappage scheme he launched in January, by drawing money from City Hall’s reserves.

Ulez, which charges drivers of non-compliant vehicles £12.50 per day, is due to expand on 29th August. Thousands of small businesses, charities and low-income Londoners have already applied for scrappage grants and the £110m scheme is likely to become oversubscribed.

The mayor has asked Prime Minister Rishi Sunak for funding to double the size of the scheme to £220m, with the hope of providing support to people affected by the move in the home counties as well as outer London.

At a meeting last Thursday, Caroline asked the mayor why he was not using money from Transport of London’s (TfL) £500m reserve fund to provide a bigger scrappage scheme. The Lib Dem said: “You stated that you believed you needed around £180m over three years for scrappage, but that £110m was all you could afford.

“Do you really think Londoners would rather see you building up reserves across the Greater London Authority, rather than using around £100m to help Londoners meet the Ulez expansion?”

The mayor replied he would keep a decision on whether to use City Hall’s own funding to increase the size of the scrappage scheme “under review”. He added that having large reserves was an important reason for why the City Hall has been awarded an AA-credit rating.

“What Caroline’s trying to do and what the Lib Dems are trying to do is have it both ways,” he said. “They want to be able to say they care about air quality, but they also want to appeal to people who have got some concerns about this.

“At the moment there is plenty of money in the scrappage scheme. If it was the case – and it’s not the case – and history shows this, that we were concerned about the scrappage scheme, not being enough, I would review it, as I’ve said.

“I think this sort of gesture politics doesn’t do well to the issue we’re trying to address, which is addressing the climate emergency, improving the quality of air and also reducing congestion.”

Caroline replied: “I think calling for a comprehensive scrappage scheme to support this policy is actually a very proper thing to do and I don’t appreciate your response.”

The Lib Dem amendment to double the size of the scrappage scheme won support from 14 members of the London Assembly – comprising Lib Dems, Conservatives and Greens – but ten Labour members voted it down, preventing it from achieving the required two thirds majority.

The Labour group also voted down two other motions, which likewise had cross-party support and would have respectively allocated £50m and £100m towards improving bus services in outer London. Labour AMs instead voted in favour of a separate motion, which proposed writing to the government to call for funding from them, rather than from City Hall, for a more “comprehensive” scrappage scheme, “similar to that provided to other parts of England”.

The latter motion successfully passed, with the Lib Dems and Greens also voting in favour and the Conservatives voting against.

For more information about the Ulez scrappage scheme:
Visit tfl.gov.uk/modes/driving/ultra-low-emission-zone/scrappage-schemes/car-and-motorcycle?cid=car-motorcycle-scrappage

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