A London assembly member has challenged Mayor of London Sadiq Khan on the impact his environment strategy could have on taxis.

The man in charge of London was questioned on his draft environment strategy, which sets out the way he will protect the capital’s environment.
Part of the plan says it will call on the government to ensure all new cars and vans being driven in London are zero emission by 2030 at the latest.

But UKIP assembly member David Kurten questioned the effect that this zero-emission target would have on the taxi and private hire trade.
Mr Khan said: “When know that there is an appetite for zero emissions taxis and have been speaking to local councillors about charging points.”

The draft strategy also proposes to deliver a major expansion in electric vehicle infrastructure, with at least 300 rapid charging points by 2020.

The mayor also pledged to work with Transport for London (TfL) to establish zero emission zones in town centres from 2020.

However, Mr Kurten said: “By the time zero emission zones come in to town centres not all taxis will be zero emission capable, will you be making an exemption for those taxis who aren’t?”
Mr Khan replied: “We are optimistic that by that time many taxis will have change to zero emission, we have seen a huge appetite from the taxi trade.”

Although the UKIP politician said he doubted that would happen and continued to argue that there would be a financial penalty to taxi drivers unless the mayor made exemptions for taxis that had not switched to zero-emissions.

Shirley Rodrigues, deputy mayor for environment and energy who also faced assembly members over the strategy said that they were waiting for the government to publish a ‘road to zero’ strategy which will tackle zero emissions.

She said: “We need the government set the framework.”

However, Mr Kurten continued to push the issue saying: “I asked what you are doing not the government.”

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