The Uxbridge by-election shouldn’t have been about ULEZ expansion

Last September I got hold of some data from DfT about the potential impact of the Ultra-Low Emissions Zone (ULEZ) expansion. My view was that a lot of the angst towards the policy was overstated with a broadly similar proportion of Outer London drivers being affected as those Inner London households who have been living with ULEZ for many years.

In world of grown up governance the government and the Mayor of London would work together and ULEZ (or something like it) would be part of a wider strategic policy to tackle environmental and health related damage as well as encouraging adoption of less polluting vehicles. We don’t live in a world of grown up governance so the government has decided to weaponise ULEZ rather than to come up with a more positive set of policies. Is it perfect? Obviously not. Is it better than keeping the status quo? Probably. Could we see a more grown up approach to governing in the future? Hopefully.

This week there was a by-election in Uxbridge and South Ruislip. Steve Tuckwell, the Conservative party candidate, built his campaign around fighting the ULEZ expansion. And he won the seat by 495 votes. The post-election coverage says the two things are linked. Even Sir Keir Starmer, has told his party colleague, the Mayor of London that he needs to “reflect” on the plans to expand ULEZ. The Mayor continues to hold his line that the expansion is the right thing to do for the air quality of the city.

What if ULEZ expansion had happened to Hillingdon by March 2022?

The Parliamentary constituency of Uxbridge and South Ruislip is covered by some of the London Borough of Hillingdon. For the purposes of the analysis we’ll use the original dataset and look at the whole of Hillingdon.

This tells us that there were a total of 118,621 private cars. Of these 32,621 (or 27.5%) would fall foul of ULEZ. That is 15.6% higher than the average across the rest of Outer London (which in March 2022 stood at 23.8%).

The vast majority of (83.7%) of petrol cars would have been exempt while the majority (59.8%) of diesels would not. This is a much greater proportion than found in Outer London in general.

But, as with my last post on this subject, diesels are dreadful for air quality in Hillingdon they account for 16.8% of cars on the road (it’s 11.1% in London as a whole) and creating a mechanism to reduce them is the point.

Given these higher levels it appears to be ‘smart’ of Tuckwell to campaign on this basis. After all, the expansion of ULEZ is more impactful in Hillingdon than on the average Londoner. Well, it was over a year ago – what does more recent data say?

What if ULEZ expansion had happened to Hillingdon by December 2022

Last time I got this data I had to ask DfT to generate a bespoke dataset but I’m pleased to report that there is now a dedicated dataset available called veh9901 (here’s the dataset I used for this post, captured in the Web Archive).

In the nine months between March and December, just over 5,000 non-ULEZ compliant vehicles have been removed from the roads of Hillingdon. That’s a reduction of 15.7%. The vast majority, 76.8%, of cars in Hillingdon are exempt from ULEZ. Yes, 23.2% is a sizeable minority but not one that should have swung the by-election.

It fits an easy narrative to say that Labour failed to win the Uxbridge and South Ruislip by-election because of ULEZ but if that’s the case then it’s rooted in a manipulated and distorted public understanding of who’s going to be impacted by ULEZ.

Certainly the reduction in Hillingdon has brought costs for the affected households. However, having made the shift to cars with improved emissions they no longer need to worry about ULEZ. Those choices may have been informed by the prospect of having to pay ULEZ, If so, then even before its expansion next month, ULEZ is already delivering on the policy intent.

This is why the Conservative’s consistent campaign against ULEZ feels like it’s being undertaken in bad faith. The promise to reverse ULEZ serves a minority of Londoners, and a minority that’s only getting smaller. It doesn’t change the fact that people have stopped driving the cars that ULEZ was designed to remove from the streets. It is a model for local taxation but the policy intent is not to raise money, it’s to clean London’s air.

What if ULEZ had expanded to the whole of London by December 2022

This trend of seeing the overall quantity of vehicles impacted by the expansion of ULEZ, eight months before it comes into force, continues when we look at the whole of London.

Since March 2022, there has been a reduction of 20,595 in the total number of cars in London. However, four times as many non-ULEZ compliant cars, 87,760, have left the city. That’s 3.5% of all the cars in London.

In Inner London, where households have come under the original ULEZ, 84% of private cars are now exempt from ULEZ. This represents an increase from 81.3% in March 2022 and a reduction of 18,400 in the number of non-compliant cars.

Outer London is of course the place where people are arguing over whether or not ULEZ should be expanded. According to the data from December 2022, 79.9% of private cars are now exempt from ULEZ. This represents an increase from 76.2% in March 2022 and a reduction of 69,360 in the number of non-compliant cars.

Whether it’s because of ULEZ or just general behaviour change there is a clear direction of travel towards fewer noxious cars on the roads of London. And that’s been achieved despite what can only be described as the government adopting a policy of antagonism toward Transport for London and the Mayor of London. You’ve got to wonder what could have been possible if they’d worked together. If Sir Keir Starmer and Sadiq Khan win their next elections they will get the opportunity to do that, and if they do, I really hope that future Labour party does a better job of engaging with the data behind the trends in car ownership in London than they have done this week.