What consideration was given to spending the £200 million that has been put aside to cover the cost of expanding the ULEZ, on other ways of improving London’s air quality?

Transport for London (TfL) already has a number of other initiatives ongoing which seek to improve London’s air quality by reducing harmful emissions from road transport, including cleaning up its bus fleet, installing thousands of electric vehicle charging points, and investing in cycling and walking.

However, to have the kind of impact on transport emissions required and to meet my ambition for London to be a zero carbon city by 2030, further options were considered this year. Several were discounted as part of the process toward getting to a preferred scheme to significantly reduce emissions:

1) Clean Air Charge (low-level emissions charge for all non-electric vehicles)

2) Strengthened expansion of Ultra Low Emission Zone (ULEZ) to outer London (i.e. expanding the ULEZ and including a low-level charge for all non-electric vehicles)

3) Smart road user charging

4) Greater London Boundary Charge

I asked TfL to proceed to public consultation with proposals for a London-wide ULEZ expansion as this struck the best balance between maximising the health and environmental benefits for Londoners while minimising the cost to drivers. I also asked TfL to continue to develop plans for smart road user charging in the longer term.

The estimated costs to set up the expanded London-wide ULEZ are around £185m.

On top of this, I am delivering policies to clean up non-transport sources of pollution, such as through my Non-Road Mobile Machinery Low Emission Zone for construction vehicles and guidance for developers in the London Plan.