Grant Shapps has been hit with a hilarious community note on Twitter after he called on Sadiq Khan to scrap the ULEZ scheme.
The energy secretary is one of a number of senior Tory MPs calling for a re-think on environmental policies after they secured a narrow win in the Uxbridge and South Ruislip by-election.
But a leaked letter shows he actually urged the London mayor to extend the capital’s congestion charge zone in 2020 as a condition of funding for public transport.
The then transport secretary wrote to Khan setting out the conditions he wanted placed on providing financial help for Transport for London, which had been badly hit by the pandemic.
It read: “Given the significant rise in congestion in inner London, we also propose the extension of the central London congestion charging zone to cover the same area as the Ultra Low Emission Zone (ULEZ) and at the same time, October 2021.”
Shapps recent tweet has been slapped with a community note pointing this out.
The added context points to the letter posted on the TfL site which highlights the conditions of funding, namely that the transport operator agrees to “the immediate reintroduction of the London Congestion Charge, LEZ and ULEZ and urgently bring forward proposals to widen the scope and levels of these charges, in accordance with the relevant legal powers and decision-making processes.”
Oh dear!
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