Four speeding offences in a year for limit-loving Lord Goldsmith
Conservative peer will be sentenced in March after being caught in hybrid electric Volkswagen
LORD GOLDSMITH has been banned from driving for two months after he was caught speeding four times last year – including in two of the 20mph zones that he supports.
The Conservative peer will not be able to drive until mid-march following guilty pleas in relation to four driving-related offences across the capital in 2023.
Lord Goldsmith, who quit Rishi Sunak’s administration last year in protest against relaxed net zero targets, committed all four of the offences in a hybrid electric Volkswagen Golf.
He was caught driving along Chelsea Embankment at 29mph on April 27, despite the road having a speed limit of 20mph, Westminster magistrates’ court heard on Thursday.
Less than three months later, on July 18, he exceeded another 20mph limit by travelling at 28mph on Bayswater Road near Kensington Gardens.
In an interview during his unsuccessful 2016 London mayoral campaign, he had indicated his support for the policy, which has since been introduced by Sadiq Khan, the Mayor of London.
Speaking to Essential Surrey during his time as the Tory MP for Richmond Park, Lord Goldsmith said: “I will support 20mph speed limits on borough roads when boroughs choose to implement them and there is local community support.”
The aims set out by Lord Goldsmith during his campaign to take charge of City Hall had included “more homes, better transport, safer streets and a cleaner environment”.
The Tory peer also pleaded guilty to two offences on the same road, the A316 in Twickenham, which has a speed limit of 40mph that he exceeded by 7mph.
Lord Goldsmith chose not to attend the hearing at Westminster magistrates’ court, where district judge Nina Tempia imposed an interim disqualification of two months until he is sentenced at the same court on March 18.
The departure of Lord Goldsmith, a close ally of Boris Johnson, from the frontbench last July was motivated by both his refusal to apologise for criticising the privileges committee, which investigated Mr Johnson for the partygate scandal, and his differences with Mr Sunak on green policy.
In his resignation letter to Mr Sunak, Lord Goldsmith said: “The UK has visibly stepped off the world stage and withdrawn our leadership on climate and nature. Too often we are simply absent from key international fora.”
He accused the Prime Minister of having “abandoned” his pledge to spend £11.6 billion of foreign aid on climate change and the environment, while also criticising his decision not to fly to Paris for a “critically important environment summit”.
It is not the first time that Lord Goldsmith has been banned from driving.
In July 2014, he was disqualified for a total of six months after receiving three speeding tickets in three months. He was caught breaking the speed limit in his Toyota Hybrid on two consecutive days in December 2013, while also being caught speeding in Richmond Park – his constituency at the time – the following February, driving at 39mph in a 30mph zone. Lord Goldsmith also declined to appear in court for the previous judgment, when he was ordered to pay a total of £570 in fines and costs.
Since leaving Mr Sunak’s administration, he has continued to attack what he believes to be “apathy” from Downing Street towards the green agenda.
Last year, he said that the Prime Minister’s time in office “will be remembered as the moment the UK turned its back on the world and on future generations [and] a moment of shame”.
This led Kemi Badenoch, the Business Secretary, to imply that the former Foreign Office minister, who is a millionaire, was too rich to feel the pain of net zero and was out of touch with the public because he had “way more money than pretty much everyone in the UK”.
‘I will support 20mph speed limits on ... roads when boroughs choose to implement them’