Sadiq Khan was today accused of risking lives and forcing people out of their cars and on to the Tube where social distancing is ‘impossible’ after he brought back the central London congestion charge a fortnight early and revealed drivers will soon pay £15 instead of £11.50.
The Mayor of London has also announced that the daily penalty, introduced by Ken Livingstone in 2003, will for the first time be imposed on weekends and extended out of rush hour from 6pm to 10pm – just hours after accepting a £1.6billion taxpayer-funded bailout.
Mr Khan has blasted the £1.1billion grant and £505million loan agreed by Boris Johnson last night as a ‘bad deal’, describing it as ‘sticking plaster’, with City Hall sources suggesting more cash might be needed within 80 days.
He said: ‘I want to be completely honest and upfront with Londoners – this is not the deal I wanted. But it was the only deal the Government put on the table and I had no choice but to accept it to keep the Tubes and buses running’.
He added the unprecedented move would ‘encourage Londoners not to make unnecessary car journeys’, slashing them by a third, even though he is urging people to avoid the Tube because of a lack of trains.
Londoners are up in arms over the decision and Tory MP Andrew Bridgen told MailOnline: ‘The Labour Mayor of London seems to be everything he can to sabotage the capital’s economic recovery from the Covid-crisis. First it was a lack of public transport services in cahoots with his union paymasters and now this. This risks forcing more people on to the Tube and increasing the rate of infection again. What is Khan thinking? Londoners might wonder whose side he’s on’.
Conservative London Mayoral candidate Shaun Bailey said: ‘Continuing to blame Government for his own financial negligence is not leadership. It’s playing politics’.
Motorists in London will again have to pay the congestion charge from Monday, after it was suspended at the start of the lockdown to make it easier for key workers to get around. The £12.50-a-day Ultra Low Emission Zone (ULEZ) charge for older and more polluting vehicles will also return.
From June 1, when the lockdown is expected to be eased further Boris Johnson, the daily congestion charge will rise from £11.50 to £15 – a 30 per cent hike. And from June 22 it will be enforced seven days a week, and until 10pm, for the first time. NHS workers will be able to claim it back, City Hall said.
The Mayor of London also said there will be include fare rises from January – after four straight years of freezes – and a temporary end to free travel for London’s 1.5million schoolchildren and no free peak travel for the over-60s while the lockdown continues.
Catholic Priest Father Grant Ciccone posted this picture of the packed Jubilee Line this morning as the first working week as the lockdown eased ends today
Despite Sadiq Khan urging people to stay at home and avoid the Tube, millions are returning to their workplaces (pictured in Canning Town today), the Mayor of London today hiked the price of the congestion charge to £15 and extended it to weekends
Traffic coming into London on the A4 was also busy this morning as more and more people return to work if they can’t do it at home
Londoners are angry and perplexed at the plans to up the congestion charge when they are being urged to stay away from the Tube
Commuter Michael Maggs tweeted this picture of a packed Tube carriage at 6am this morning and said: ‘@SadiqKhan how we meant to social distance with your terrible service you are running. Had to wait 15 mins to get in this. You are putting lives at risk’.
Mr Khan had said Transport for London was hours from going bust and blamed Boris Johnson for no social distancing on trains by easing the lockdown this week.
Ministers last night agreed to hand the Labour Mayor a £1.1billion grant plus £505million in loans with ‘strings attached’ to get London’s transport system back up and running – hours after Mr Khan was accused of blackmail and repeatedly asking for £2billion in return for getting services back up to 70 per cent of pre-crisis levels by Monday.
A Government source has attacked Mr Khan as a ‘profligate’ mayor ‘who had let money go to waste’ after four years of fare freezes. ‘There are a lot of strings attached,’ the insider added, including future ticket price hikes and curtailing free travel for the over-60s.
Millions have returned to work this week and the number of passengers on the London Underground is up ten per cent in a week, leading to ‘dangerous’ conditions because services have been running at as low as 15 per cent of capacity.
Commuter Michael Maggs tweeted a picture of a packed Tube carriage at 6am this morning and said: ‘@SadiqKhan how we meant to social distance with your terrible service you are running. Had to wait 15 mins to get in this. You are putting lives at risk’.
Northern Ireland Secretary Brandon Lewis has said he ‘wouldn’t’ get on a busy tube train.
Mr Lewis told LBC that he ‘would probably think about finding a bike and jumping on a Boris bike and cycling across London’.
Asked whether the Mayor of London Sadiq Khan blackmailed the Government into giving more money to TfL, Mr Lewis said: ‘Look I think the public around London can inform their own views around the appropriateness of the way the current Mayor acts.
‘I would like to make sure and see a Mayor who is focused on delivering for the people of London.’
Pushed on whether there will be exemptions to the 14-day quarantine period for people including business travellers, Mr Lewis said: ‘There will be a 14-day quarantine. What we’re looking at is the exemptions which are appropriate and are safe to put in place to ensure it is practical as well as safe.’
Fears have been rising for workers packed on to Tube and buses that are running at a significantly reduced capacity as Boris Johnson encouraged people to go back to work.
Government sources said the mayor had demanded £2billion but was turned down ‘several times’. The sides have settled for a £1.1billion package plus £505m in loans which ‘will need to be paid back’.
Apple Mobility data shows that travel is down in London since the lockdown began – but is creeping upwards when services are not
Paris: Metro trains have been plastered with stickers showing people where to stand and sit to maintain social distancing, while almost all commuters appeared to be wearing face masks
Milan: Passengers keep safe distance as they ride on the train of the green line of the Metro where trains have been marked up with safe distance stickers
Barcelona: Commuters receive face masks distributed by Red Cross volunteers in a train station in Spain where the lockdown was eased slightly today
Berlin: The BVG network (pictured) and Cologne’s KVG network have both been running regular schedules since May 4 and May 11 respectively, while commuters have been encouraged to use them for regular journeys
As part of the agreement, TfL will have to restore full services ‘as soon as possible’ although there is no fixed timetable, and the government will also approve advertising on TfL. ‘He will be taking ‘stay alert’ not ‘stay at home’,’ the source said.
TfL will have to report on staff absences, which are currently said to be running at 20 per cent.
There will also be a central government review of TfL’s finances and fares will increase by RPI plus 1 per cent, breaking the Mayor’s previous pledge to a freeze on fare rises, according to the source.
‘We were always prepared to put money into keeping Tube and bus services running in London and help the travelling public stay safe from coronavirus but we were not prepared to accept ludicrous demands from a profligate mayor, and this money comes with many strings attached,’ the source said.
Mr Khan is seeking re-election in the mayoral election postponed to next year although he is the runaway favourite to be turned to City Hall. Any price rise for travel is likely to be jumped upon by some of his opponents, but the Tories claim that his decision to freeze prices for four years fuelled the current TfL cash crisis.
Mr Khan has announced that he will increase Tube services in London to 70 per cent of normal on Monday – but only after threatening to cut Tube, train and bus services unless the Government stumped up cash.
He claimed that TFL would go bust unless the Government hands over cash to fill the £4billion black hole coronavirus has left in its finances because of an 80 per cent plunge in income from fares, advertising and the congestion charge.
But Mr Shapps said that the mayor would have to increase capacity back to 100 per cent ‘very quickly as people are starting to travel more, it is very, very important that we do not have overcrowding’.
TfL was already losing millions each month before the coronavirus and is billions in debt after Mr Khan’s decision to freeze fares every year since he was elected in 2016. He has also been accused of being too soft on militant transport unions and having the worst average strikes record of any Mayor.
Mayor of London Sadiq Khan (pictured in Downing Street in March) has launched an extraordinary attack on Boris Johnson and also warned he will cut Tube, train and bus services unless the PM agrees an emergency bailout by the end of today
Signs like these have been appearing at Tube stations – but more and more people are following instructions to head to work
The Central Line was dangerously rammed with commuters who had no choice but to go to work in packed carriages
Industry sources have claimed TfL is losing £600million a month during the crisis and wants £2billion in taxpayer-funded support even though bosses have £1.2billion in their cash reserves.
Mr Khan told LBC: ‘Unless the government today gives us confirmation of the grant that we need, the consequences could be quite severe and the implications for all of us will be huge. The only way to balance the books is to cut services’.
Former Tory minister Stephen Hammond, MP for Wimbledon, told MailOnline: ‘An extraordinary remark. He is threatening the health of Londoners by saying this sort of thing. We need to get the networks, the Tube and the London suburban network back up to full capacity. the mayor should concentrate on running as big a service as possible so people can travel socially distanced and in as responsible a way as possible.’
There has also been anger over Mr Khan’s comments on LBC yesterday morning, with one listener saying: ‘He is trying to blackmail the government and yes he is prepared to use the health and safety of London’s key workers as collateral for a bailout of his transport service’, while another critic tweeted: ‘It’s blackmail – just as people start to return to work’.
Mr Khan also suggested that the PM is to blame for the congestion on the Tube this week after tearing up an agreement that people would return to work from this coming Monday and bringing it forward a week at two hours’ notice.
Mr Khan told LBC: ‘Many of our staff are shielding, self-isolating or ill. We got to a stage where plan that we worked out with the Department for Transport and from Monday May 18 we would increase Tube services to 75 per cent and ramp it up again in three weeks. And then on Sunday we were presented with a fait accompli. I was in a Cobra meeting two hours before where he [Boris Johnson] told us this was his plan’.
The Mayor of London revealed that Tube passenger numbers are up 10 per cent today on last week – admitting that thousands more people were trying to get on trains. When asked about the shocking pictures of cramped carriages this morning he said: ‘It’s deeply upsetting. The reality is that every time somebody interacts with somebody on the street, in a shop or on a train it can increase the spread. That’s why we are urging people to stay at home’.
He also said employers should be taking responsibility for the lack of social distancing on public transport, by refusing to accept that ‘fear’ is a good reason not to come back to work. Mr Khan said: ‘Londoners are being told to return to work unless they have a good reason. I can understand when you’re on a zero hours contract or your boss is telling you to get to work you may go in. That’s why I’m imploring the Government to put pressure on employers to stagger the start to the day I don’t want to undo the work’.
Data published by location technology firm TomTom showed there was more traffic in the UK’s major cities compared with the previous week.
The congestion level in London at 8am was 19%, up from 16% last week.
Other cities to experience an increase include Belfast (from 12% to 15%), Birmingham (from 9% to 11%), Cardiff (from 8% to 11%), Edinburgh (from 12% to 15%) and Manchester (from 10% to 13%).
The figures represent the proportion of additional time required for journeys compared with free-flow conditions.
The Cabinet Office today refused to comment on claims that they had dropped their transport trends slide from the daily coronavirus press conference over recent weeks to hide the fact many more people were getting into their cars or taking public transport. A spokesman told MailOnline that the slides are online daily – and that are not always shown because ministers and health chiefs may want to ‘focus on other things’.
Tube bosses have put up station signs telling commuters to ‘go home’ unless they are key workers despite Boris Johnson telling millions of Britons to return to work, it was revealed today.
Transport for London’s foreboding ‘go home’ messages came amid the growing row with Downing Street who insist trains must return to normal to revive the economy while the Mayor of London says that ‘lockdown has not been lifted’.