ULEZ decision day

 

ULEZ decision day

BY ELENI COUREA

JULY 28, 2023 8:00 AM CET

 

London Playbook

By ELENI COUREA

https://www.politico.eu/newsletter/london-playbook/ulez-decision-day/

 

Good Friday morning. This is Eleni Courea. Rosa Prince will be back on Monday.

 

DRIVING THE DAY

ULEZ D-DAY: London’s ultra-low emission zone is back in the spotlight, with a court deciding today whether its expansion to cover the outskirts of the city is legal.

 

U-win or U-lez? At 10 a.m. a High Court judge will rule on whether the planned ULEZ expansion on August 29 — championed by London Mayor Sadiq Khan, resented by the Labour leadership and weaponized by the Tories — can go ahead. Five Tory-run councils had launched a judicial review of the move.

 

The wider context: Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and Labour leader Keir Starmer have both cooled on the climate agenda, having become fearful that any extra financial burden it puts on voters could tip the balance against them at the next election. Voter concerns about ULEZ were pinned as the reason for Labour’s failure to win Uxbridge and South Ruislip off the Tories a week ago, opening a sizeable rift between Starmer and Khan.

 

On the No. 10 diary: The PM — whose obsession with traveling everywhere by helicopter isn’t helping him dispel claims he doesn’t care about the environment — is visiting a business in Wales today. He will be interviewed by BBC Wales before taking further questions in an off-camera huddle with reporters.

 

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Memo from TB: New Starmer bestie and former Labour Prime Minister Tony Blair has become the latest to weigh into the green debate. “Don’t ask us to do a huge amount when frankly whatever we do in Britain is not really going to impact climate change,” Blair declared in a cover interview with the New Statesman’s Andrew Marr, which was carried out before the Uxbridge by-election last week (that line splashes the Telegraph and gets a Times write-up too). Blair also said that engagement with China is necessary to solve climate change.

 

What some Tories are talking about: What the government should do about energy giants’ giant profits (besides simply telling them to be nice and use them to help consumers) and whether the price cap system should be reformed. British Gas’ bumper earnings get prominent write-ups in today’s papers and there is more to come on this topic soon — BP is posting its quarterly results on Tuesday.

 

OUT OF OFFICE ON: City Hall advisers keen to get on with ULEZ expansion and shadow Cabinet aides nervous about a reshuffle can rest easy for a while — Starmer is taking his summer break from today. He’s spending it in the U.K. (somewhere with good restaurants we presume). Rishi Sunak is going away in the middle of next week.

 

Later in August: King Charles will host the PM and his family at Balmoral during the late August bank holiday weekend, following the queen’s annual tradition, according to the i’s Jane Merrick — who points out that Sunak and the king could be due an awkward chat about climate policy.

 

MEANWHILE IN FRANCE: President Emmanuel Macron’s ministers have been told to take low-key domestic holidays and stay within two hours of a government office to avoid stoking the febrile public mood. Keep an eye out for conspicuous snaps of French ministers looking busy over their laptops along the Côte d’Azur.

 

MIGRATION NATION

MARQUEES FOR MIGRANTS: Home Secretary Suella Braverman has bought tents to accommodate up to 2,000 migrants on disused military sites in the next few months, Matt Dathan reports in the Times splash.

 

The idea is: To stop a repeat of last year, when officials scrambled to make last-minute bookings at expensive hotels after an unexpectedly large surge in small boat arrivals in late summer and early fall. The number of arrivals this year are on a similar track.

 

Eye-catchingly: Dathan’s story suggests the proposal to house people in makeshift camps opened rifts within government. He cites Home Office sources who argue there’s nothing wrong with the idea and that it’s already used in other countries such as Ireland — but he also reports it’s been likened internally to concentration camps and that a similar proposal was rejected during Boris Johnson’s premiership.

 

This won’t have helped: Thanks to the Illegal Migration Bill, the OECD reckons that U.K. spending on hotels to house migrants can no longer be counted as aid (or ODA), Rob Merrick reports in a great scoop for the i. In essence, because the bill bars anyone who arrives by small boat from claiming asylum, the likelihood is that migrants can no longer be classed as refugees. Officials are now trying to find where the money for hotels will come from, according to the paper.

 

Can you get the bill? “There’s now a scramble between three departments to avoid responsibility for paying for this, if the costs can no longer be counted as ODA,” a source familiar with the row tells Merrick. “The Treasury has told the Home Office it can’t have more money, the Home Office is saying it doesn’t have the budget for it, so it will have to come from the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office – but the FCDO is saying that, if it isn’t ODA, it won’t pay.”

 

More on this topic: This week The Economist takes a look at how the U.K. has squandered its reputation as a world-leader in aid and argues that Starmer could make a mark in this area were he to become PM.

 

Ready to react: Shadow Home Secretary Yvette Cooper is doing a mini broadcast round this morning.

 

Victory for the Mail: The Solicitors Regulation Authority has told the Daily Mail it is launching a probe into firms and individuals identified in its sting on rogue immigration lawyers.

 

NIGEL VS. NATWEST

IF YOU THINK YOU’VE HAD A TOUGH WEEK AT WORK … Think of the top bosses at Nigel Farage’s now former bank. NatWest Chief Executive Alison Rose was the first to quit in the debanking row; Coutts’ chief exec resigned on Thursday; and now NatWest Chair Howard Davies is under heavy pressure to follow.

 

Hounded Howard: The Daily Mail dedicates a spread to whether Davies can survive much longer in his post after Sunak declined to express confidence in him. A Stephen Pollard comment piece decries the “breathtaking arrogance of the serial failure who epitomises so much of what’s wrong with the British establishment,” accompanied by a picture of Davies (just in case readers think that headline is about Farage.)

 

Uh-oh: Treasury and Bank of England officials have been locked in talks over the prospect of a vacuum at the top of NatWest if Davies goes and have relayed their concerns to ministers, the Guardian reports. The decision about whether to back Davies “seems to be on hold”, a Treasury source told the paper. “So they risk a back him or sack him situation while the taxpayer’s stake loses value.”

 

Quite the timing: NatWest is due to report its half-year profits today in a call with investors — which the Guardian says Davies is expected to lead.