Sadiq Khan is quietly pressing ahead with his pay-as-you-drive plot across London. Having previously floated the idea in a Financial Times interview earlier this year, Transport Minister Richard Holden revealed at the despatch box this morning that Khan has asked Transport for London officials, including Deputy Mayor for Transport Seb Dance, to look into the “technicalities” of introducing the money-grabbing plan. Despite his spokesperson claiming “there are no proposals on the table for such a scheme”…

Holden said today:

“…I met the acting CFO and Seb Dance, the Deputy Mayor for Transport yesterday. They informed me that the Mayor of London, in anticipation of falling revenues from ULEZ in the future […] had asked them to investigate the technicalities of introducing road charging across London in the future.”

Sadiq has already admitted he finds the idea of whacking Londoners with a pay-per-mile charge “potentially quite exciting“, though insisted “the technology’s quite a long way off“. Clearly that hasn’t deterred him – as if the ULEZ debacle wasn’t enough. Better hope for another screeching U-turn.

UPDATE: Steve Tuckwell, Tory candidate for Uxbridge and South Ruislip, tells Guido:

“Sadiq Khan’s plans to charge every single driver in Hillingdon with road user charging prove once again that he just ignores Outer London. If he gets his way, nobody will be safe from his war on motorists. There are already reports of Labour MPs starting to panic – so people know that if Labour doesn’t get the big win the bookies predict, they’ll put pressure on Sadiq to scrap his plans. People here in Uxbridge know there’s only one way to make the Mayor listen to Outer London. That’s with a vote to stop Ulez on 20th July.”