Is Labour planning a ‘national ULEZ’?

In recent days, the Conservative party has widely circulated targeted adverts on Facebook suggesting that Labour is planning to introduce a “national ULEZ” next month if elected. The ads, which now appear to have been taken down, were shared with the caption: “Labour’s national ULEZ: coming to a road near you this July”.

This is misleading—there’s no specific evidence Labour is planning to introduce such a scheme if it wins the election, and Labour has reportedly denied it plans to do so.  

The Ultra-Low Emission Zone (ULEZ) is a ‘clean air zone’ in London where people are charged a daily rate for driving a non-compliant vehicle—a measure intended to tackle air pollution. Its expansion last year proved controversial and it has been the subject of much misinformation we’ve written about before. 

The adverts, most of which appear to have stopped running on 28 June, showed images resembling newspaper clippings featuring headlines of several articles reporting negative stories about ULEZ and a similar clean air zone in Birmingham. A voiceover said: “This is happening in Khan’s London and in Labour's billion pound bankrupt Birmingham, it's not even working. With his supermajority Keir Starmer can steamroll through plans to introduce a ULEZ near you, you better start saving.”

One of the adverts targeting voters in Stevenage, Hertfordshire, had overlaid text saying: “Do you want this in Stevenage?” Although we’ve not been able to do a full count, a search on Facebook’s Ad Library suggests over 800 versions of the ad may have been posted in recent days—the sample we checked appeared to be the same apart from the location changing according to the area being targeted. 

While Labour has expressed support for clean air zones in the past, its manifesto does not include any plans for a ‘national ULEZ’ or similar ULEZ schemes in specific locations from July, and we’ve not seen any other specific evidence of such plans. 

It’s also worth noting that, unlike other countries, the term “supermajority” has no real meaning in UK parliamentary terms.

It’s impossible to say whether any politician will, or will not, end up introducing a certain policy—we often say we can’t fact check the future—but we can look at the evidence that this will happen. 

Political parties should take care not to mislead voters about the options available to them during the election.

We’ve contacted both the Conservatives and Labour for comment and will update this article if we receive a response. 

What has Labour said about clean air zones?

Labour reportedly prepared an 86-page document in May 2023 intended to “inform Labour’s policy proposals ahead of the next general election”, and “support the delivery of Keir Starmer’s five national missions”. 

While Full Fact has not seen this document in full, it reportedly said: “Labour supports the principle of clean air zones and recognises the huge damage to human health caused by air pollution and the damage to our climate caused by carbon emissions from polluting vehicles. 

“However, they must be phased in carefully, mindful of the impacts on small businesses and low-paid workers, and should be accompanied with a just transition plan to enable people to switch affordably to low-emission vehicles.”

However, policies outlined in this “initial draft” had to pass through multiple stages before making it into the final manifesto a year later. This included being debated by members of Labour’s National Policy Forum (NPF), being “subject to approval” at Labour’s annual conference, and being finally decided upon at Labour’s ‘Clause V’ meeting ahead of publication. 

According to media reports in August 2023, the policy on clean air zones was dropped at the NPF forum. 

What do the Conservatives say?

Last week transport secretary Mark Harper reportedly suggested Labour is planning to introduce clean air zones across the UK by rolling out a pay-per-mile road tax. Although this was described in some of the reporting as a “nationwide ULEZ”, pay-per-mile road charging (where drivers are charged according to the miles they’ve travelled) is a different concept to the ULEZ scheme in London (where a flat daily rate is charged for driving a non-compliant vehicle in a certain area).

While Labour’s manifesto does not mention plans to introduce a national ULEZ or pay-per-mile scheme, it also does not explicitly rule it out —unlike the Conservative manifesto, which says it will “back drivers by stopping road pricing”.

However, as highlighted in this LBC interview, Labour not ruling out the policy is not the same as saying it’s “coming to a road near you this July”, as the Conservative ads did. Labour also reportedly described Mr Harper’s claims as “absolute nonsense”, though it’s not clear if this means it’s ruled out any future road charging schemes and the party did not respond to our questions for this fact check.  

Mr Harper has also pointed to Labour-run Wales and London as evidence of what the party might do elsewhere in England. He said on X (formerly Twitter): “Labour refuse to rule out these new taxes on drivers and are currently planning them in Wales & London.”

The Labour-run Welsh government did commission an independent review of road user charging in Wales in 2020 which includes an assessment of low emission zones, and its National Transport Delivery Plan 2022-2027, published in February 2023, includes a commitment to “develop a fair and equitable road user charging framework”. 

A Welsh government spokesperson reportedly said in February 2024: “There are no plans to introduce charges for motorists on Welsh Government-managed trunk roads. Powers to implement universal road charging and to retain revenues are held by the UK Secretary of State for Transport.

“Welsh Ministers’ powers to introduce charging schemes are a tool of last resort to tackle persistent air pollution hot spots should this be necessary in the future.”

We’ve contacted Labour in Wales to confirm whether there are plans to introduce charges on other roads, and will update this article if we hear back. 

Ahead of the London mayoral election in May we fact checked the claim that Sadiq Khan planned to introduce a pay-per-mile charge in London, something he has repeatedly ruled out.

This is not the first time a pay-per-mile scheme has been on the political agenda. Tony Blair’s Labour government had plans for a “national road pricing scheme”, which would have charged motorists up to £1.50 a mile on certain roads. However, 1.8 million people signed a petition against this in 2007, and Labour’s manifesto for the 2010 election ruled it out.

What would a ‘national ULEZ’ look like?

It is not exactly clear what the Conservative party means by a “national ULEZ”, what that could look like in reality and whether the phrase refers to something specific or is shorthand for some kind of pay-per-mile scheme. 

It is for local authorities to decide whether to adopt a clean air zone and, while the UK government published a framework for establishing these in 2017, they are not required under the Transport Act 2000 to follow this. 

Following a high court battle over breaches of legal levels of air pollution in England in 2018, 37 local authorities were directed to take action in the form of clean air zones. But this direction came from the courts, rather than the government.