Khan blocking export of scrapped Ulez cars to Ukraine, says Transport Secretary

SADIQ KHAN is blocking the export of scrapped Ulez cars to Ukraine, the Transport Secretary has suggested.

In a letter to the Mayor of London, Mark Harper told Mr Khan yesterday there was no “legal barrier” to cars being donated to Ukraine through the ultra low emission zone (Ulez) scrappage scheme.

In December last year, The Telegraph revealed Mr Khan had declined a suggestion by Vitali Klitschko, the mayor of Kyiv, to send some of the vehicles due to be scrapped to Ukraine instead.

The mayor had said he did not believe altering the scheme for exporting vehicles was possible under current laws. Under the London Ulez scheme, motorists are able to claim a one-off payment of £2,000 if they scrap a vehicle that does not comply with the controversial pollution levy.

Mr Khan later asked Mr Harper for help to enable the donation of 4x4s to Ukraine.

Government sources told The Telegraph: “It remains a surprise that the mayor only raised his concerns about this in December when his expanded Ulez scrappage scheme had been live since August/sepembert.”

In his letter, Mr Harper said: “We do not consider there to be any legal barrier to allowing vehicles to be donated to Ukraine.”

He addressed the “legal obstacles” Mr Khan identified and said there had been a cross-government approach with Transport for London to identify routes to overcome these issues.

Mr Harper added it is a “reasonable certainty” that vehicles donated to Ukraine through the Ulez scheme would be “highly unlikely” to leave the hands of the Ukrainian army and return to the UK.

Commenting on social media platform X, formerly Twitter, Mr Khan wrote: “Encouraging news from the Transport Secretary – let’s keep working together to get this done.”

Mr Khan hopes a programme for exporting non-ulez compliant vehicles to Ukraine could be used by other cities with scrappage schemes.