Mark Harper: Wherever Labour is in power, we can see their thirst to frustrate, delay and tax drivers cannot be quenched
Conservatives are on the drivers side. The labour party will find any way possible to drive them off the road.
I know that for many living in cities and towns across Britain, the car is an essential means of transport. Something the city-obsessed Labor doesn’t seem to understand, or simply doesn’t care about.
All you have to do is check out our respective details. Wherever Labor is in power, we can see that their thirst for frustration, delay and tax boosters cannot be quenched.
In Labour-run Wales they are waging an all-out war on the driver. Between the blanket 32 km/h zones costing the economy billions and the ban on all new road infrastructure projects being built, the driver is demonized.
I know that for many living in cities and towns across Britain, the car is an essential means of transport. Something the city-obsessed Labor doesn’t seem to understand, or simply doesn’t care about.
All you have to do is check out our respective details. Wherever Labor is in power, we can see that their thirst for frustration, delay and tax boosters cannot be quenched.
In Labour-run London, Sadiq Khan expanded the ULEZ even to areas where a car is essential and not a luxury.
In Labor run London, Sadiq Khan expanded the ULEZ even to areas where a car is essential and not a luxury. This aggressive and regressive tax on motorists, imposed by an Orwellian array of surveillance cameras, punishes the poorest motorists who cannot afford a new car.
Traffic is piling up in parts of London due to poorly designed neighborhoods with little traffic and no local permission.
While we have offered a safe future for drivers with our Plan for Drivers. We have made it clear that it is not right for motorists to feel targeted and have offered bold long-term action to improve their lives.
We have frozen fuel taxes for fourteen years in a row, saving the average family thousands of euros. We’ve invested hundreds of millions to make our most dangerous roads safer. And we have committed to spending billions in HS2 savings on filling the potholes and resurfacing the roads.
Keir Starmer, once the backseat driver, has resisted this at every turn.
So in an era of aggressive local politics against drivers of the left, we will continue to actively defend the driver at every turn.
That is why, if re-elected, we will introduce a new ‘Backing Drivers Bill’ as soon as possible to legally strengthen drivers’ rights.
We will unilaterally reverse Sadiq Khan’s unfair ULEZ expansion in London.
We will prohibit any form of pay-per-mile scheme. The last Labor government tried to implement it. We will stop it.
Finally, we will enable local people to vote on new LTNs or blanket 20mph schemes and have the right to challenge existing schemes, because it is local people who must decide what is best for their area.
These are not decisions we make lightly, and I fully expect the anti-driver left to oppose them. And that will tell you everything you need to know about which side they’re actually on.
So there is a clear choice. Get around faster, cheaper and freer with the Conservatives’ plan for drivers and a reputation for bold action or get stuck in the slow road with Labour.
- Mark Harper is the Minister for Transport and the Conservative election candidate for Forest of Dean
