This article was originally published on ConservativeHome.
In November 2022, to mark 12 months since the COP26 Summit in Glasgow, I published a report entitled Regional Government Delivering the Green Agenda: 12 Months On. The report looked at how four British Mayors – two Conservative and two Labour – were seeking to drive forward environmental improvements.
Tees Valley Mayor, Ben Houchen, West Midlands Mayor, Andy Street, Greater Manchester Mayor, Andy Burnham, and the current London Mayor, Sadiq Khan, have all been clear about the need to focus on the green agenda, but that has not translated to successful delivery for all four mayors.
It has become increasingly clear that Khan has produced far more hot air than genuine improvements to London’s environment.
Last year’s report made seven recommendations to Khan for how he should learn from his fellow Mayors’ successes and make London cleaner and greener. His failure to do so has been deeply damaging to London and Londoners.
In my report, I called on Khan to learn from Burnham on how to successfully reduce carbon emissions from public buildings, whilst reviewing “what the entire GLA group can do to lead on green best practice.” There has been no change of approach and no visible sign of him seeking to learn from his fellow Labour Mayor.
I further called for Khan to scrap his then-planned Ultra-Low Emission Zone (ULEZ) expansion and invest the money he planned to spend on cameras and signage on “a scrappage scheme for Londoners to upgrade their vehicles” as well as on “other measures to tackle air pollution.”
The Mayor had promised he would not proceed with ULEZ expansion if Transport for London’s (TfL’s) consultation on it showed “overwhelming opposition” to expansion. Despite the consultation showing exactly that and despite the Mayor’s own TfL-commissioned Jacobs’ Integrated Impact Assessment (IIA) showing that ULEZ expansion would do vanishingly little to improve London’s air quality – whilst proving deeply damaging to the lives and livelihoods of many outer London residents – the Mayor chose to plough on regardless.
Sticking to ULEZ, my report called for the Mayor to “invest the income gained from the current ULEZ into delivering a zero-emission bus fleet quicker and increase the number of rapid electric vehicle chargers – making it a priority like that of the West Midlands.” Although there has been slow progress on both these issues with London reaching 1,000 zero-emission buses in August, TfL’s current expectation is that London won’t have a zero-emission bus fleet until 2034. Meanwhile, there was a recent announcement that “five new ultra-rapid electric vehicle charging hub sites will be offered to the market across London.” However, the Mayor has failed to find the money needed to move further and faster.
Any successful Mayor needs to be able to work with the Government and with councils. Last year I called for Khan to “consider how other metro Mayors both Labour and Conservative work constructively with the Government”. This does not mean he should not stand up to the Government when he thinks it is getting it wrong, but the Mayor has consistently shown himself happier acting as a petulant, ego-driven, wannabe Opposition, rather than putting London and Londoners first. In the last year Khan has done nothing to suggest that he recognises he’s got this wrong and he has consistently shown himself to be unwilling or unable to change his approach.
Perhaps it is somewhat understandable that Khan has struggled to work effectively with the Conservative Government, but he has also failed to work well with London’s boroughs – in spite of the fact that the majority of them are now Labour-controlled.
On car clubs, there is a clear role for an effective London Mayor to work with and bring together boroughs to facilitate the expansion of car club cars and car club parking spaces on London’s roads. Given each new car club car removes 23.5 private cars from London’s roads, this is a real opportunity for the Mayor to be proactive. Similarly I called for the Mayor to “change the London Plan to allow for car club parking spaces to be implemented in addition to the overall allocation of parking in new estates.” Yet again, Khan has failed to do this – a ridiculous missed opportunity.
Finally, in my report I called for the Mayor to “rethink his current energy schemes such as London Power and the Warmer Homes scheme and use funding to investigate longer term energy solutions such as hydrogen power or investing in newer carbon capture technologies.” However the Mayor appears to be constitutionally unable to admit mistakes and change direction.
A key justification for localism is that it allows different approaches to be tried in different cities and areas. Instead of the Government determining that one size must fit all and enforcing it across the country, different Mayors can try different approaches which are tailored to their area. Equally, those Mayors can learn from each other and take forward best practice. Since COP26, other Mayors have done excellent work in greenifying their areas via innovative, forward-thinking policies.
It would be unfair to say that there has been no environmental progress in London over the last two years, but given the resources available to London’s Mayor and given the lessons he could have learnt from Ben Houchen, Andy Street, and Andy Burnham, there is really little excuse for Sadiq Khan not to be doing significantly better.
This article was originally published on ConservativeHome.