Sadiq Khan has been ordered to end his ban on sending cars to help in the Ukraine war effort after his “dodgy” legal claims for not doing it were exposed as false.
The London Mayor has been blasted by his Conservative rival Susan Hall over his refusal to send thousands of cars which have been deposited with his scrappage scheme for the expansion of the Ultra Low Emission Zone (ULEZ).
Mr Khan had claimed that he was unable to send the cars requested by President Zelensky and the Mayor of Kyiv which are desperately needed as Russia continues its onslaught on the country.
But his reasons were exposed as fake by Department for Transport lawyers.
Ms Hall described Khan’s legal arguments as “vague” and “dodgy”.
She told Express.co.uk: “Sadiq Khan was caught out months ago, trying to resort to his old tricks as a former lawyer, throwing around sketchy legal arguments to dig himself out of a hole.
“Except we now know there was no legal barrier, as I’ve said all along.
“Sadiq needs to own up, admit he was wrong, and get these vehicles to Ukraine as fast as he can.”
She was reacting to a statement from Transport Secretary Mark Harper who wrote to Mr Khan dismantling his legal argument against helping Britain’s ally in Eastern Europe.
He wrote: “We do not consider there to be any legal barrier to allowing vehicles to be donated to Ukraine.
“You have identified legal obstacles that relate to the processes and design of your scheme and DfT (Department for Transport) and DLUHC (Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities) officials have been working with TfL (Transport for London) to identify routes to overcome these.”
Mr Harper insisted there was a “reasonable certainty” that vehicles donated to Ukraine through the scrappage scheme would be “highly unlikely” to leave the hands of the Ukrainian army and return to the UK.
He added that the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA) has already created a process for recording when it is notified of a vehicle being exported to Ukraine which will enable Transport for London (TfL) to avoid “multiple scrappage payments being paid for the same vehicle”.
Commenting on the letter on social media platform X (formerly Twitter) Khan wrote: “Encouraging news from the Transport Secretary – let’s keep working together to get this done.”
