Imagine if Jeremy Hunt announced a new 60p income tax band that was payable only by people who earn less than £20,000 a year. Or if he reversed council tax so that Band A homes paid three times as much tax as Band G homes, rather than the other way round. There would be more than outrage, perhaps riots. Why, then, do things work so differently with green taxes?
Today, Sadiq Khan has announced that London’s ultra-low emissions zone (Ulez) will be extended to cover the entire city, rather than just the area inside the north and south circular roads as at present. It will mean drivers of non-compliant vehicles having to pay a daily charge of £12.50 to use the roads. Yet where is the opposition? The Labour party normally never fails to accuse Tory chancellors of taxing the poor while leaving the rich alone.
Everyone likes clean air, but the Ulez charge isn’t directly linked to how much pollution is spewing out of the rear end of your vehicle. The charge applies to any petrol car which doesn’t meet Euro 4 standards (which is most vehicles registered before 2005) and any diesel car which fails to meet Euro 6 standards (which is most vehicles registered before 2015). Cars which do meet the higher standards pay nothing.
But how much difference is there, say, in emissions between a Euro 5 diesel and a Euro 6 diesel? Not a lot/ Both are allowed – in official tests – to emit up to 0.5g/km of carbon monoxide and 0.005 g/km of particulate matter (i.e. soot). A Euro 5 compliant car is allowed to emit 0.23 g/km of hydrocarbons and nitrogen oxides – not all that much more than the 0.17 g/km allowed under Euro 6 standards. The biggest difference is in nitrogen oxides alone: a Euro 5 car is allowed to emit 0.18 g/km and the Euro 6 car 0.08 g/km. But these are just official test figures – and as we have seen with the Volkswagen scandal, how much pollutant cars emit in real-world driving depends very much on how they are driven, and how well they are maintained.
The daily Ulez charge is essentially a tax on older vehicles. It is particularly punishing for tradespeople who rely on older diesel vehicles and who cannot change to other forms of transport. Plumbers cannot take their blowtorches, plus bags of other kit, on the tube. Meanwhile, the oafs who rev up around Kensington every summer in brand new supercars, are excused from having to pay anything.
If it is about pollution, then why does the charge not fall on all petrol and diesel cars, and be made proportional to how much they are driven? Obviously, a Euro 6 diesel which is driven around all day will emit vastly more pollution than a Euro 5 diesel used once a day to take an elderly person to the shops.
Air pollution is hazardous to health, and it is right that ever-higher standards are demanded of new cars – the next standards, Euro 7, will cover emissions from tyres and brake pads, and so will apply to electric vehicles for the first time. But why the desperate need to price off the road ordinary motorists who cannot afford to buy the latest vehicle?
As well, Defra’s latest report shows that sulphur emissions (across the country, not just London) are down 98 per cent since 1970, nitrogen oxides are down by 76 per cent and non-methane volatile organic compounds down 67 percent since the same date. PM10s (larger soot particles) are down by 80 per cent since 1970 and PM2.5s (smaller soot particles) down by 85 per cent.
The air has become dramatically cleaner over the past couple of generations – and can continue to be cleaned up without imposing taxes specifically on the poor.
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