OK, so what’s new there? I can’t really remember at time when any motorist truly trusted any government over any road issues, or indeed on taxation issues, so when the two collide, its pretty obvious there isn’t going to be a lot of confidence that anything that happens is going to be for the good of the motorist.
The Chief Executive of the BVRLA, Mr. John Lewis, is in favour of a national road pricing scheme as an alternative form of taxation, but feels that “any idea of introducing the scheme would rely on politics being taken out of the process”.
Recently, Mr. Lewis gave evidence to the House of Commons Transport Committee which is investigating taxes and charges on road users. Mr. Lewis described elements of the current taxation system as having a “slight of hand” quality. He said “There has been a breakdown in trust between the government and the business motorist”. Mr. Lewis admitted that the current benefit in kind system had helped reduce CO2 emissions by 3.5 million tonnes a year, he said that other taxes on motorists had simply been seen as money making exercises, rather than influencing future behavior.
Mr. Lewis told the committee “I think that mistrust is perhaps taking us away from applying real taxes, perhaps an overall review of the tax system and giving us a national road pricing programme, because if we are going to have that mistrust that’s failed before it starts,”.
There were several reasons for the breakdown in trust between the government and motorists, said Mr. Lewis.
“Take the London congestion charge, “When that was introduced the motoring community was advised the price wouldn’t change for 10 years, within two years it moved from £5 to £8, within another two years it was going to move from £8 to £25 for some cars,” he said.
Mistrust would always create a problem where additional charges to the motorist were concerned when considering a road pricing scheme, claimed Mr. Lewis.
Instead, he said, using road pricing as an alternative taxation system with heavy goods vehicles as a starting point could be the answer.
“We should make the way for a national road pricing system, not an additional tax, but an alternative way of taxing”. “Perhaps, may be as well, we should look at depoliticising that, because may be we need an independent body rather than a political party to look at it which transcends elections and political parties because it’s a long term strategy,” he added.
Well that’s enough of Mr. Lewis and the House of Commons for the moment; fact is, as motorists, we already pay a very high price for our use of the roads, much of which is never used to make our roads better or indeed spent in any way to the benefit road users. London has an excellent transport infrastructure, but for those of us that live outside of London a car isn’t a fashion statement or luxury, it’s an absolute necessity, to allow us to live our lives and run our businesses and take our kids to school, but as always, the issues that effect us non-Londoners are going to be decided on by people that don’t it seems look much further than their own back yard, and to highlight that, you only have to look at Mr. Martins best example of distrust, (the changing price of the London Congestion Charge – a London issue) to see where the rest of us ‘out of Londoners’ figure in all this.
Yes motorists are sceptical, yes we are distrustful of changes of this type, but then I can’t really think of a tax that has ever benefited the motorist.
The motor industry has done so much to clean its act up and the car manufacturers should be applauded for that, but clearly the government are aware that whilst at the moment, they can tax us heavily for driving high polluting cars, there will come a time when most of our cars we drive will be as clean as feasibly possible for an internal combustion engine, and of course, many of us will turn to alternate fuels or electric cars and the hydrogen fuel cell isn’t so far away either, so where do the government go then to take more cash off us? The answer is simple, it’s easy, its forever, its road pricing.
By all means, if you disagree, support the road pricing initiative, but have you ever asked yourself why in these difficult times, the Government are prepared to spend the tens of millions it would take in terms of equipment, cameras, administration etc to make it all work, well the answer is blindingly simple, the goose is always going to lay golden eggs from then on and if they need a few extra quid in the exchequer, it’s going to be a pretty easy job to up the egg production, or should I say, increase the price we pay for every mile we drive.
