Sir Keir Starmer backtracked on his criticism of the Ulez emissions scheme on Friday as he claimed Sadiq Khan has “no choice” but to expand it in London. The Telegraph has more.
On Thursday the Labour leader said the party’s candidate in Uxbridge was right to raise concerns about the London Mayor’s plans to extend the scheme across the whole of the city.
It came after the candidate, Danny Beales, said it was “not the right time to extend Ulez in outer London” in a direct challenge to Mr. Khan.
But on Friday, asked during a phone-in on LBC Radio if he supported the rollout, Sir Keir shifted his position.
“I accept that the Mayor has no choice but to go ahead because of the legal obligation on him [to improve air quality],” he said. “I think Danny is right to stick up for his constituents.”
Asked again if he supported the expansion, the Labour leader said: “I understand the pain it is going to inflict.”
Pushed again, Sir Keir said: “I don’t think there is an alternative. I have looked, as you’d imagine, I have looked at the legal provision because if there was wriggle room, but in the end…”
He added: “I have looked at it myself, looked at the legal provision, I think it is difficult to simply say you can ignore the legal requirement to do something about this so the Mayor, in fairness, is between a rock and a hard place on this.”
Under Mr. Khan’s expansion plans, Ulez will charge around 10% of drivers £12.50 per day to use their cars inside the M25 as part of efforts to improve air quality in the capital.
No choice? Sounds like an excuse to me. But it gives the Tories a great opportunity to wrongfoot Labour by changing whatever rule it is that supposedly ‘requires’ the policy. Which I’m sure they’re about to do, any moment now…
And shall we just remind ourselves what a terrible state London’s air is in, that it requires the imposition of punishing daily charges on large swathes of poorer Londoners.
Right, it’s never been cleaner.
Glad our betters have their priorities straight.
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