Markus Andrews

MPs who drive into Westminster are avoiding tens of thousands of pounds a year in congestion charges and ultra low emission zone fees by putting them on expenses, an investigation by The Independent has found. Clean air groups have written to parliament’s expenses watchdog asking it to stop MPs avoiding the anti-pollution charges, which are supposed to deter people from driving into central London and adding to its illegal levels of air pollution.MPs expensed nearly £70,000 of congestion charge and ultra low emission zone (ULEZ) fees in the most recent full financial year – and have managed to rack up another £10,000 bill in the two months before this year’s summer recess.Many of the MPs claiming the fees on expenses drive more polluting cars that require them to pay the additional Ultra Low Emission Zone (ULEZ) fees – which brings their total payments to £27.50 a day. But under parliamentary expense rules they can have the taxpayer cover the cost, an approach the chair of London’s health committee warns “defeats the point of having these deterring measures in place”.The Independent has identified 116 MPs who have expensed £15 congestion charges or ULEZ fees at least once since the beginning of the current financial year – 86 of them Conservatives and 24 Labour. None of the MPs have broken any rules as IPSA, parliament’s expenses watchdog, allows both fees to be legitimately reimbursed.The most-high profile MP to have the taxpayer cover both the congestion charge and ULEZ charge was Matt Hancock, who made the expense claims while he was still health secretary and allegedly having an affair with an aide. Other ministers expensing TfL road charges include environment minister Jo Churchill, who claimed £325 to cover fees in March alone. So far this financial year Northern Ireland minister Conor Burns has expensed over £302 in both congestion charges and ULEZ charges, while Wales minister David TC Davies expensed over £192. Former environment secretary Owen Paterson has also expensed both the congestion charge and ULEZ charge.Other well-known MPs to put the congestion charge down as an expense include shadow home secretary Nick Thomas-Symonds, Labour rising star Jess Philips, and Tory MP Mark Harper – who chairs the Covid recovery group which argues against coronavirus restrictions. Speaker Lindsay Hoyle also expensed £25 worth of TfL road charges in March this year. Not all 116 MPs identified made clear which of the two charges they were expensing in their claims, so it is not possible to work out exactly how many were driving more polluting cars that attracted the higher ULEZ fee.The revelation comes ahead of the expansion of the ULEZ on Monday, with the anti-pollution charge extended to cover most of inner London as far as the north and south circular roads. Environmental issues are also high on the agenda because world leaders will this week travel to the UK for the first day of the landmark COP26 climate conference.In a letter to the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority (IPSA) shared with The Independent, six clean air groups said they were “deeply concerned” and called for an “urgent” review of the Commons expenses policy.Arguing the scheme needed everyone to play their part and that MP should be “role models”, they said: “The public should not have to pick up the bill for MPs who choose to drive a polluting car in London. This is on top of the public costs we already face from air pollution – scientists estimate every car driven in an inner-city area in the UK costs the NHS and society around £7,714 over its lifetime.”Accepting that the claims were “legitimate” under the existing rules, the groups added: “There is however a legal and moral duty to take all the action we can to improve air quality. We are therefore writing to request that this policy is urgently reviewed so that MPs are no longer allowed to claim ULEZ and Clean Air Zone charges. This will protect our health, the public purse and, importantly, ensure MPs are encouraged to take a lead in using greener transport.”The letter to IPSA was organised by the Clean Cities Campaign – a coalition of European NGOs campaigning for zero-emission mobility – and was also signed by representatives from Mums for Lungs, the Car Free Cities Campaign, CPRE London, the London Cycling Campaign, and Fare City. Caroline Russell, the Green London Assembly member who chairs the body’s health committee, told The Independent: “Employers allowing employees to regularly expense a charge like the ULEZ or congestion charge just to get to work completely defeats the point of having these deterring measures in place. “The charges exist to discourage the use of cars, especially the most toxic ones – and a parliament that has declared a climate emergency should only allow the use of these polluting vehicles on expenses in the most exceptional circumstances.”The Palace of Westminster where MPs work is one of the best connected buildings on the planet, with its own private underground entrance to Westminster tube station, a number of 24-hour bus routes on its doorstep, and London’s most popular cycle path going past its front gate.Jenny Bates, transport campaigner at Friends of the Earth, said: “MPs should be setting an example and not drive unnecessarily into central London, contributing to climate emissions and the capital’s deadly air pollution. “Air pollution is responsible for the early deaths of thousands of Londoners a year, causing kids’ lungs to not develop properly, causing lung cancer and triggering heart attacks and strokes, among other problems.” She added: “Many parts of the capital fail current UK legal levels for the toxic gas nitrogen dioxide, as well as nearly all of the city failing even the previous World Health Organisation guidelines for the most dangerous fine particle matter pollution which can get deep into lungs and even the bloodstream“If MPs are paying the ULEZ charge that means that their vehicle is particularly polluting and should be left at home, or swapped for a cleaner vehicle.”Although the Covid-19 pandemic appears to have encouraged more MPs to drive in and expense the charges, the practice was widespread before the disease hit. MPs expensed around £40,000 in congestion charges and ULEZ fees in the financial year 2019-2020, which ended at the beginning of April 2020.The expenses rules laid down by IPSA specifically say MPs can claim for emissions charges. Rule 9.18 states: “MPs using private transport may claim reimbursement of the costs of parking charges, congestion and ultra-low emission zone charging and road tolls. Penalty charges or additional charges for late payment, or civil charges for traffic, parking or other violations, will not be reimbursed.”Asked about the rule, a spokesperson said: “MPs are able to claim the ULEZ charge as the Houses of Parliament are within the ULEZ and they are required to attend Parliament as part of their role as an MP.”After The Independent had collated the data for this story, but before IPSA responded to a request for comment, the expenses authority wiped the relevant details from the expenses data from its website. Asked why this had been done, a spokesperson for IPSA said that the authority had “temporarily” removed “descriptive detail from previously published claims on our website” as a security measure as a response to the killing of MP David Amess a week ago. The congestion charge to drive into central London is £15 a day, and the ULEZ charge for the most polluting cars is another £12.50 on top of this. Electric vehicles do not have to pay anything, and people living inside the congestion charge zone – as many MPs do – can claim a 90 per cent residents’ discount. More

Labour has called on Boris Johnson’s government to bring in its so-called “plan B” restrictions to tackle the surge in Covid cases.Shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves said ministers must listen to scientific advisers asking for tougher curbs – including the mandatory wearing of masks in public places and a return to work-from-home guidance. “We think we should follow the science – if the scientists are saying work from home and masks, we should do that,” Ms Reeves said on The Andrew Marr Show.Asked if Labour was in favour of mandatory masks, work from home guidance and vaccination certification, the frontbencher said: “Yes, we’re relaxed about that. We think the government should do it.”Ms Reeves added: “The government’s dither and delay risks storing up problems for the future … I think we should introduce those things that the scientists say.“Plan B and those measures like mask wearing, which we should be doing … If we don’t do these things the risk is that the virus gets out of control and that we have to introduce more stringent measures, which frankly nobody wants.”The shadow chancellor also said “we don’t want to let the government off the hook in terms of plan A … there are things like better statutory sick pay and better ventilation that are also needed”.Chancellor Rishi Sunak said on Sunday that plan B measures were not necessary “today”, but hinted the government’s position could change.“The data does not suggest we need to be immediately moving to plan B,” Mr Sunak told Marr. “But of course we will keep an eye on that. The plan B does not involve the same type of very significant economic restrictions we saw previously … so that won’t be necessary.” Asked if a new furlough scheme was possible, Mr Sunak said: “I think we’re in a different place because of the vaccine programme … we have that plan B if we need it. The data doesn’t suggest we need it today. But if that changes then of course government will be ready to act.”The government’s new vaccines minister Maggie Throup also claimed plan A is “working” and the ministers were “sticking” with it. She told LBC: “Plan A is working, as I said, the data right now shows that Plan A is working.”Prof Adam Finn, a member of the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI), said it was “quite questionable” for Mr Sunak to suggest more booster jabs alone would be enough to see the nation through the grim season ahead.Prof Finn told Times Radio on Saturday the government should “do more” to toughen up on restrictions now to avoid the need for another national lockdown.Prof Peter Openshaw, a member of the Nervtag group, said he feared a full lockdown would be needed at Christmas “if we don’t act soon” with plan B measures. “There’s no point in delaying,” he told the BBC.Meanwhile, The Observer reported that the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) contacted local authorities on Friday to canvass their level of support for the “immediate rollout of the winter plan – plan B”.In the sign that Whitehall is actively planning for a possible escalation in measures, the agency reportedly told council chiefs it was urgently seeking their views to be fed into the Cabinet Office. More

Chancellor Rishi Sunak has rejected calls from Manchester United footballer Marcus Rashford to extend the government’s free school meal programme.The campaigning England star and supermarket bosses have called on ministers to push the scheme into the school holidays in a joint letter ahead of the Budget.But Mr Sunak appeared to rule out any further support for meals – saying the government had “transitioned to a more normal way of doing things” after extra money put in place during the Covid crisis.The chancellor told The Andrew Marr Show: “We put in place some measures to help families during coronavirus, that was the right thing to do, and in common with the other things that have now come to an end … that’s right that we’ve transitioned to a more normal way of doing things.Arguing the government’s existing holiday activities scheme was sufficient, Mr Sunak said: “We have actually already acted, is what I’d say to Marcus and everyone else.”The chancellor added: “We’ve put in place something called the holiday activities program, which provides not just meals but also activities for children during holiday periods. That is a new programme, it was announced earlier this year … and I think that can make an enormous difference to people.”In a letter to the Sunday Times, Mr Rashford and supermarket chiefs – including the bosses of Sainsbury’s, Waitrose and Marks & Spencer – called for free school meals to be extended to millions more children.Children currently qualify only for free meals if their household earns less than £7,400. But Mr Rashford wants the threshold raised to £20,000 for both free school meals and Healthy Start vouchers.The England star and food sector leaders also called on the chancellor to commit more funding to free meals over the school holidays. Mr Rashford said the levelling up agenda “surely” begins with “guaranteeing every child in Britain can eat well at least once a day”.Reports suggest the chancellor is preparing to announce an increase in the minimum wage from the present rate of £8.91 an hour, but he gave little away in his interviews on Sunday morning.Mr Sunak has already pledged £500m for “family hubs” and other measures to support parents with young children – but he has been warned it is not enough to make up for a decade of cuts. Labour called the hubs a “pale imitation” of its Sure Start program.Asked on Marr whether it was a mistake to close the network of Sure Start centres introduced under Labour, Sunak insisted the new scheme was “broader than the Sure Start centres, and they bring together lots of different services for new parents”.The chancellor also promised he would take measures to “raise living standards”, but claimed recent cost of living rises hitting hard-pressured families were out of his control.Asked about inflation rising to just over 3 per cent – with a warning from the Bank of England that it could rise above 5 per cent – Mr Sunak said: “The bulk of that increase is down to two things. One of those is the fact that as economies have reopened rather rapidly after coronavirus, that has put pressure on global supply chains.”He added: “The other part of the increase is very much just down to energy prices. Both of those factors are global factors. We’re not alone in experiencing those problems, I don’t have a magic wand that can make either of those things disappear.”Mr Sunak also said he wanted to be a tax-cutting chancellor, despite the government raising national insurance next to pay for a boost to NHS spending and social care.Asked on Sky News’ Trevor Phillips on Sunday if he could rule out further tax rises before the next election, Mr Sunak joked: “You’re asking me to do my Budget live on your show … I’ll do it in parliament on Wednesday.” More

Chancellor Rishi Sunak has admitted that his £7bn pre-Budget pledge for new transport projects contains only £1.5bn of new money.Extra spending will go on train and tram upgrades in England’s cities, Mr Sunak said as he seeks to fend off protests that pledges to the north and Midlands are being broken.Pressed on how much of the money was new, the chancellor conceded £4.2bn had previously been announced. “What we’ve done is top that up by £1.5bn,” he told Sky’s Trevor Phillips on Sunday.He added: “It’s a great example of levelling up in practice, and it’s ultimately just going to create growth in all of those places.”Mr Sunak would not be drawn on whether metro mayors would also be told that HS2 will be built in full to Leeds, and whether a stop for Northern Powerhouse Rail would be confirmed for Bradford. “It wouldn’t be right for me to speculate,” he said.Fears have been growing that the HS2 scheme’s eastern leg is to be significantly trimmed or even scrapped as part of the upcoming integrated rail plan.The Independent has learned that a new station in Leeds and a new line connecting the city are likely to be given the go-ahead – but trains will be forced to slow down and run on existing tracks between Yorkshire and the Midlands in a scaling-back of the HS2 leg.Labour’s West Yorkshire mayor Tracy Brabin expressed her dismay at the lack of commitments over HS2 and Northern Powerhouse Rail from the chancellor – warning him not to “water down” pledges.“What is important for us is that stop in Bradford. We can’t have a watered-down version of our transport network,” she told Sky News. “We have been underfunded for decades.”She added: “Now is the opportunity for government to be bold, to be ambitious and to come with us with our vision for West Yorkshire to have that London-style transport system that will really make us that powerhouse we can be.”Mr Sunak pointed out that Conservative mayor of the West Midlands Andy Street and Labour’s Greater Manchester mayor Andy Burnham had welcomed the announcements he had made.“What the money announced yesterday was about is about what we call intracity transportation, and that’s about how do we get people who live in and around a city to be able to get into the middle of it and out again easily,” the chancellor said on Sunday.Mr Burnham praised the government and said there was now more “alignment” between regional leaders and Whitehall, as his city region appeared to be the big winner from Treasury announcements.It was confirmed Greater Manchester would be handed £1bn in capital funding for the infrastructure elements of the transport plan at the budget on Wednesday. More

Two in three voters in the UK support tax rises to pay for measures to mitigate the climate crisis, exclusive new polling for The Independent has found.Chancellor Rishi Sunak is under pressure to avoid tax hikes from Conservative MPs sceptical of the government’s net zero plans as he prepares to deliver his Budget on Wednesday.But the idea of raising taxes to deal with the climate emergency has widespread support from the British public, a survey by Savanta ComRes has revealed.Some 67 per cent of voters said tax rises at the Budget would be “acceptable” if revenue was spent on action to reduce the impact of climate change. Only 22 per cent said they found the idea “unacceptable”.It comes as Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey called for a windfall tax on gas producers to help pay for the transition to a green economy and provide more support for families struggling with fuel bills.“Fossil fuel companies are raking it in hand over fist through this gas crisis. The least they can do is pay a little more in tax to help struggling families get through the winter,” Sir Ed told The Independent – estimating a windfall tax could raise up to £10bn.He added: “This windfall tax would raise vital funding to insulate people’s homes, slash energy bills and protect skilled jobs. If Rishi Sunak is serious about tackling both the climate emergency and the cost of living crisis, he would introduce this one-off tax.”Boris Johnson claimed Britain could meet its target of net zero emissions by 2050 “without so much as a hair shirt in sight” as he revealed the government’s net zero strategy earlier this week.But a separate Treasury report warned that the country faces new taxes or cuts to public spending to pay for the transition to net zero.Income from fuel duty and vehicle excise duty will all-but disappear as the UK goes green, Mr Sunak’s department conceded – blowing a £37bn black hole in its budget unless “new sources” of revenue are found.Kate Blagojevic, head of climate at Greenpeace UK, said the Savanta ComRes poll for The Independent showed that the government “now has a clear public mandate to fix our tax system in order the help cut emissions”.She added: “Our current tax system isn’t fit for delivering action on the climate emergency. It gives very mixed signals on green growth, innovation and, in the case of energy levies, keeps us hooked on climate-wrecking gas … Voters clearly understand this and want change.”Greenpeace has calculated that an extra £73bn of public investment is needed over the next three years in the push for energy-efficient homes and clean transport. But the campaign group said the extra investment would help create up to 1.8million jobs.Ahead of the next week’s Budget, the campaign group called for Mr Sunak to impose green levies on gas and scrap VAT on green goods such as heat pumps and solar panels.Currently, green levies are imposed on electricity bills but not gas, which is more polluting form of energy. The government is thought to be considering moving the surcharges from electricity to gas.Chris Hopkins, associate director at Savanta ComRes, said voters may support spending on action to tackle climate change in principle, but still need to know how exactly the extra money will be raised.“The public will often tell us they are favour of tax rises to pay for noble causes, but when it comes to paying more tax themselves, support usually wanes,” he said. “The big question for the government, and the opposition calling for it, is what should be taxed more to pay for this?”Labour has said it would spend an extra £28bn each year on helping Britain tackle the climate crisis, saying the money would come from government borrowing. Conservative MP David Davis said fellow backbench Tories are “sick of tax hikes and green spending”. He claimed: “The government’s hell for leather pursuit of net zero carbon emissions by 2050 threatens a huge drop in living standards for our children and grandchildren.”Meanwhile, the Savanta ComRes survey also found high levels of support for tax rises to boost spending on the NHS and social care, raising the minimum wage and investment to “level up” disadvantaged parts of the country.Some 76 per cent of voters are willing to see taxes increase if means more money for the health and social care sector. Some 75 per cent will accept tax hikes for action on low pay, while 65 per cent back higher taxes if money goes to disadvantaged areas. More

Rishi Sunak will announce £3 billion of investment into skills and education in the Budget to help workers get better-paid jobs. The chancellor said the cash injection, which will be given to post-16 education and adults later in life, aims to give people “the skills they need to earn more and get on in life”. In what the government is calling a “skills revolution”, Mr Sunak will announce the number of skills boot camps in areas such as artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, and nuclear will be quadrupled.While £1.6 billion will provide up to 100,000 16- to 19-year-olds studying for T-levels, technical-based qualifications, with additional classroom hours.Some 24,000 traineeships will also be created in the package, expected to be part of measures announced at next week’s Budget and spending review. Mr Sunak said: “Our future economic success depends not just on the education we give to our children but the lifelong learning we offer to adults.“This £3 billion skills revolution builds on our plan for jobs and will spread opportunity across the UK by transforming post-16 education, giving people the skills they need to earn more and get on in life.”Existing colleges in England are to be allocated £830 million with extra funding for new equipment and facilities.The National Skills Fund will be boosted with a total investment of £550 million to quadruple the number of places on the skills boot camps, which are available for adults of any age.Mr Sunak will also announce the expansion of free Level 3 courses for adults, which are equivalent to A-levels, in subjects like maths, chemistry and biology. Apprenticeship funding will also increase by £170 million to £2.7 billion in 2024/25.Meanwhile, the Telegraph reported that Mr Sunak is set to unveil a multi-million-pound boost for the NHS next week, which will include funds for a digital overhaul after Sajid Javid revealed one in 10 hospital trusts still use “paper-based systems”. The newspaper reported he is expected to confirm more than £4 billion of funding for new hospitals and hospital upgrades overall. More

The British government tried Saturday to speed up the pace of talks to resolve post-Brexit trade troubles with the European Union saying the two sides remain far apart and time is running out to bridge the gap.U.K. and EU negotiators have met in Brussels over the past week to try and resolve major differences that have erupted over trade rules for Northern Ireland The talks move to London on Tuesday, and Britain says “substantial gaps on the fundamental issues remain.”The U.K. government said talks so far had been “constructive” but added that “we need to see real progress soon rather than get stuck in a process of endless negotiation because the issues on the ground in Northern Ireland haven’t gone away.” Northern Ireland, which is part of the U.K. and shares a border with EU member Ireland, remains inside the EU’s tariff-free single market for goods, even though the U.K. left the 27-nation bloc at the end of 2020. That special status ensures there is an open border on the island of Ireland — a key pillar of Northern Ireland’s peace process since the 1998 Good Friday accord. But it means a new customs border in the Irish Sea for goods entering Northern Ireland from the rest of the U.K., even though they are part of the same country.That has brought red tape for businesses, and caused problems with some goods reaching Northern Ireland. EU rules on chilled meats led to a brief sausage shortage, and now Britain claims that Christmas crackers — festive noisemakers that are a holiday party staple — are being prevented from reaching Northern Ireland.The new arrangements have also angered Northern Ireland’s British Unionists, who say the checks undermine Northern Ireland’s place in the U.K. and destabilize the delicate political balance on which peace rests.The EU accuses Britain of trying to renegotiate a legally binding agreement that it signed less than a year ago; some officials say it shows the U.K. government can’t be trusted. The bloc has, however, agreed to make changes to the deal, offering to reduce checks on food, plants and animals entering Northern Ireland by as much as 80% and to cut paperwork for transport companies in half.Britain has welcomed those proposals, but also is demanding that the EU’s top court be stripped of its role resolving any disputes over the agreement and replaced with independent arbitration — an idea the bloc flatly rejects.Chief negotiators Maros Sefcovic of the EU and David Frost for Britain are due to meet in London at the end of next week to assess the talks’ progress. Britain on Saturday repeated a threat to trigger an emergency break clause that lets either side suspend the agreement in extreme circumstances if there is no breakthrough soon.That would bring legal action from the EU, and potentially economic sanctions that could spiral into a trade war. Any such battle is likely to hurt the economy of the U.K. more than the much bigger EU.Irish Foreign Minister Simon Coveney also warned that talks couldn’t go on forever, and urged Britain on Friday to respond to the EU’s willingness to compromise.“I think the EU has shown a real appetite for compromise, and they have consciously avoided creating tension,” he said. “I can’t say the same in terms of the British government’s approach.“I don’t think it will be the case forever, that the EU will be in compromise and solutions mode.”___Follow AP’s coverage of post-Brexit developments at https://apnews.com/hub/Brexit More

Talks are set to continue between the UK and the EU in London next week, despite the two sides remaining “far apart” on crucial issues surrounding the Northern Ireland Protocol.British officials described talks in Brussels this week as “constructive”, which came after the EU proposed new measures to ease trade barriers stemming from the agreed Brexit deal.But it is understood there is still major divide when it comes to Brexit minister Lord Frost’s demand for an end to the European Court of Justice (ECJ)’s role in trade arbitration.UK sources close to the negotiations warned that real progress must be made soon on “governance” issues, saying a process of “endless negotiation” had to be avoided.A team from the EU Commission is set to travel to London on Tuesday for several days of intensive discussions, before Lord Frost and EU Commission vice president Maros Sefcovic meet in person in Westminster for talks at the end of the week.A UK government source said: “The talks this week were constructive and we’ve heard some things from the EU that we can work with – but the reality is that we are still far apart on the big issues, especially governance.“There’s been plenty of speculation about governance this week but our position remains unchanged: the role of the European Court of Justice in resolving disputes between the UK and EU must end.”The source added: “We need to see real progress soon rather than get stuck in a process of endless negotiation because the issues on the ground in Northern Ireland haven’t gone away.”The UK side said it wants to see momentum “soon” to work out whether the gap can be bridged – or if Boris Johnson will need to take the drastic step of triggering Article 16 in his withdrawal deal to suspend protocol arrangements.The protocol, which was agreed to maintain a free-flowing land border on the island of Ireland, has created a series of economic barriers on the movement of goods from Great Britain to Northern Ireland.EU proposals would see an 80 per cent reduction in checks envisaged for retail agri-food products arriving in NI from GB. The EU plan also includes a 50 per cent reduction in customs paperwork.Despite months of complaints about the burden of border checks, Lord Frost has made clear the removal of the European court’s oversight function in policing the protocol is now the big red line for the UK.Under the terms of the protocol – agreed by Mr Johnson in his 2020 Withdrawal Agreement – the ECJ would be the final arbitrator in any future trade dispute between the two parties.But the EU Commission has insisted it will not move on the ECJ issue, with some reports suggesting Brussels chiefs are gearing up for a trade war if a compromise deal cannot be struck.EU officials could consider terminating the post-Brexit trade deal if the UK government does not honour protocol commitments, sources have told Bloomberg.The EU would be able to justify ripping up the trade agreement by pointing out that agreements on Northern Ireland were a necessary condition for a trade accord, a Brussels source told the outlet. More