Labour’s tunnel tax will make driving an unaffordable luxury for Londoners
From today, Londoners will have to pay as much as £35 to get to work via the Silvertown or Blackwall Tunnels. The message from this Labour government is clear: drive less and pay more, says Gareth Bacon MP
It used to be that the family car symbolised freedom, whether that be the school run, the daily commute, visiting loved ones or heading off for a weekend away. But under Labour, driving is fast becoming a luxury only the wealthy can afford.
Quietly, bit by bit, driving is being priced out of reach. From this month, buried beneath the headlines, working people are being hit by wave after wave of new charges and taxes on driving. Labour’s war on the motorist is spiralling out of control.
More specifically, drivers in London now face yet another cost. A toll of up to £8 for a return car journey or £13 in a van, to cross the Thames via the Blackwall Tunnel. Introduced alongside the opening of its new parallel neighbour, the Silvertown Tunnel, this marks the first time in the Blackwall Tunnel’s 128-year history that the crossing has carried a fee.
For 100,000 people each day the Blackwall Tunnel has been a staple of travelling through the capital, baked into the rhythm of their working lives. But from today, adding the new cost of tolling this route to the Congestion Charge and ULEZ, it can now cost over £35 just to get to work in London. That is not to mention the recent road tax hikes, rocketing insurance costs, and rising fuel prices. It’s daylight robbery.
Let me be clear: the issue isn’t the principle of the tolling the pair of tunnels themselves. In theory, charging both the Blackwall and Silvertown tunnels might make sense on paper, avoiding a scenario where one crossing is tolled and the other free, which would risk only displacing congestion rather that reducing it.
But timing and priorities matter. By imposing this toll now, when households are already buckling under the cost-of-living crisis, Labour has chosen to whack working people with yet another bill. Add that to their looming jobs tax, which will leave working households £3,500 worse off, and you start to see the pattern. Whether you’re a plumber crossing the Thames, a carer on the night shift, or a parent on the school run, the message from Labour is the same: drive less, pay more.
And it’s not just a London issue, this is the blueprint for Labour’s Britain. Across the country, nearly every driver is now paying more in road tax, even those who switched to electric. Behind the curtain, Labour are always looking for the next way they can tax you. No one is spared.
Meanwhile, Britain’s car industry is being thrown under the wheels. Staring down the barrel of a 25 per cent US tariff, a £1.9 billion hit looms over the automotive sector that will send prices soaring and competitiveness crashing. This is a blow that will be felt on every forecourt, in every showroom, and by every driver already feeling the squeeze. It didn’t have to be this way, under the Conservatives, the UK came close to securing a trade deal with the US. But under Labour progress stalled, leaving Britain dangerously exposed.
Unfortunately, it’s not just tariffs. Labour’s Jobs Tax is threatening over 50,000 livelihoods and is placing a further £200 million burden on the automotive sector. The result will mean more expensive cars, more pressure on drivers, and more pain for working families already stretched to the limit.
Big Brother on wheels
As if the current charges weren’t enough, Labour’s vision doesn’t stop at tolls and taxes. Lurking beneath the surface of Labour’s plans is something far more insidious: pay-per-mile road pricing. Dreamt up by Tony Blair’s think tank and quietly creeping back onto the agenda, it’s the ultimate Big Brother on wheels. Your every journey clocked, logged, and taxed. School run? Meter’s running. Shift at the hospital? Charged. Weekend at your mum’s? That’ll cost you. A government black box strapped to your daily life. And they call it progress but it’s really a slow, silent tax raid on your freedom to move.
Labour is paving a road reserved for the rich and leaving working drivers behind in the slow lane. Sadiq Khan needs to plug the £1.5bn black hole in Transport for London’s finances, and your car is his cash machine.
Sadiq Khan needs to plug the £1.5bn black hole in Transport for London’s finances, and your car is his cash machine
Death by direct debit, the slow bleed of the working driver. Another line on a bank statement, another unnoticed toll quietly wearing through tyres and wallets, dressed in invoices, buried in apps, wrapped in routine.
Under new leadership, the Conservative Party is taking a different path. Driving is a necessity for millions of people. It’s how they earn, care, and live. And we’ll always stand up for those who keep this country moving through their car, their van, and their freedom to get from A to B without being taxed into submission.
Labour can’t help themselves. They see your car as a problem to be priced out. We see it as the engine of our economy and a freedom worth protecting.
Gareth Bacon MP is shadow transport secretary and shadow minister for London