Sadiq Khan’s ‘pay-per-mile’ is a threat to every family in London, writes Susan Hall

16 April 2024, 07:02

Sadiq Khan’s pay-per-mile would be a disaster for London, and that’s why I am determined to stop it, writes Susan Hall
Sadiq Khan’s pay-per-mile would be a disaster for London, and that’s why I am determined to stop it, writes Susan Hall. Picture: Getty

Susan Hall is the Conservative candidate to be Mayor of London - for a full list of candidates running in the 2024 election click here

Susan Hall

By Susan Hall

Sadiq Khan’s pay-per-mile would be a disaster for London, and that’s why I am determined to stop it.

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Imagine having to pay Sadiq Khan a fee for every single mile you drive? It doesn’t matter if you’re taking your kids to school, or driving to hospital, or going to work. 

Sadiq Khan will claim his fee because this city belongs to him – in his mind.

He will decide how much you owe him, through an automated system of ULEZ tax cameras.

You will even have to pay an extra charge if you get stuck in traffic.

Under Sadiq Khan’s pay-per-mile plans, you pay more if the road is congested.

The fee can even go up just because Sadiq Khan decides he wants more money. As chair of TfL, he has the powers to dictate how the charging scheme works.

His denials are nothing but hot air. He has spent £21 million on the technology for it already and hopes to spend £150 million on it in total.

He put it in a legally binding document, his Transport Strategy, to force Transport for London to pursue it no matter what denials he makes publicly.

Now he is taking Londoners for fools, by dismissing anyone who calls him out as ‘liars’ and ‘fake news’ peddlers. It is not the first time he has done this.

Remember back in 2021, when he denied having plans to expand ULEZ to Greater London, and then announced it a few months later?

Or in 2022, when he told an audience of Londoners that if they disagreed with his ULEZ expansion, they were conspiracy theorists and working with the ‘far-right’? It’s the same old smears. The same old falsehoods.

Londoners are sick to death of it. We cannot let this happen. The consequences are too dire to think about.

Families forced into debt, including those who already had to borrow money to pay for his ULEZ expansion.

Small businesses forced to shut down altogether.

Charities unable to operate anymore.

It could be catastrophic for our city, forcing people to leave the city in extraordinary numbers.

He has been planning this for years. He doesn’t care about the consequences, because his voters are primarily in inner London and have excellent access to public transport.

That’s why he won’t listen.

We could take to the streets in our thousands, and he would still push it through.

The money means more to him than the Londoners he is meant to serve.

We only have one chance to stop him on May 2nd. I am listening.

I will scrap the ULEZ expansion and pay-per-mile plans on day one. But I need your vote to make it happen.

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