MattW

This policy has been all over the radio but can't find anything on the BBC or Sky website, anyone aware?

stilover

That's because the Lib Dems have a cat in hells chance of ever coming to power.

A non-story

lozgti

I still like Vince Cable though .

Pops up to twist the knife in in the nicest possible way on government **** ups

SJ_Skyline

On the day they get in, Satan will be going to work in a snowplough

Paul3446

Pointless idea, from a pointless party.

Can you imagine setting up toll booths on every exit of every A road in the country?

Ringpeas

Why do they come up with such crap policies, when they are trying to get elected

lozgti

They might not be so daft as wanting the hotseat in the aftermath of credit card Britain

They are such a wet party though

scoobynutta555

Another vote winning policy then

J4CKO

iTrader: (1)

TAX IT, TAX IT, TAX IT......Yawn

What is this constant goverment hatred of us moving from one place to another, are the Lib Dems employed by Labout to make them look good ?

We like cars, we like driving as a country, we dont want to stop, the enviromental arguments are weak at best and we still have to get around, if we stop driving will they tax cycling, then walking, the standing still.

We might as well use the rest of the oil thats left.

Brit_in_Japan

Road pricing is the name for it and the DoT very much sees it as the future. It's not something dreamt up by the Lib Dems, give it 5 - 10 years and whichever party is in power will be arguing for it's introduction (and the main party in opposition will of course be saying it's a terrible idea!!). I heard Nick Clegg on the radio, their proposals envisage road tax disappearing to be replaced with road pricing, where the emissions of the vehicle are linked to the rate you pay/mile. There wouldn't be toll booths everywhere (doh!) it would be GPS based with an electronic unit in each vehicle working out where you are and charging you accordingly. There have already been trials in UK cities to test the technology. Low CO2 emission cars would be charged low rates, high emissions = high rates.

scoobynutta555

So it'll not only charge you by the mile, it will know how fast you're going and where you stopped off for breakfast too. What a lovely society that will be

boomer

So why don't they collect the tax by, say, a charge on fuel?

That way it takes into account how often you drive, how far you drive, whether you are in congestion (because you use fuel regardless of movement) and the efficiency of your engine. Maybe we could call it a fuel duty, and ring-fence the money to be re-invested in improving and optimising the road network. However, it would be wrong to charge VAT on top of this "duty", as that would constitute a "tax upon a tax"!!! Any superfluous could be used to improve public transport.

Oh, SILLY ME, i forgot - they ALREADY double tax fuel, and then p1ss away the proceeds on child benefit for lithuanians or john lewis kitchens for MPs or obscenely impossible NHS IT projects or giveaways to the EU or plotting a **** ID card system or snooping on every aspect of the UK citizens lives or subsidising "public" transport that is being run by (profit making) private companies aaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrggggggggggggghhhhh!!!

Time for a cull of politicians, as interbreeding seems to have taken place

mb

SlimJ_2005

Every day is April 1st with the Liberal Demoprats!

scoobynutta555

You better calm down boomer or you'll have to go to your £100,000 plus gp (during office hours of course and if you can get an appointment)for some medication that's if you're in the right postcode. Any prescribed medicine will cost loads unless you're Welsh, Scottish or a doley

Leslie

We are paying so far over the top as motorists now that any suggestion of screwing us for even more money is morally wrong. They won't even keep the roads in good order!

They simply do not like the people having the personal freedom of owning a car, and they always want more money to throw away on useless matters as far as the country is concerned.

Les

PeteBrant

BBC NEWS | Politics | Clegg unveils road charging plan

Here you go.

They are proposing to drop fuel duty completely. Drop road tax completely and replace it with a system of varying charges for road use, depedning on the road and the car you use.


If you really look into it, it might not be the worst idea ever.

boomer

Road charging is just about the worst idea ever!!!

The proposed (and hopefully shelved) Manchester congestion charge would have cost £2.68 in transaction fees for each £5 charge (see MART press release for 23-Jul-2007). Imagine if you went to the supermarket for your weekly shop and had to pay the checkout girl half the total bill just for adding up your groceries?

Road charging is just a gravy train for the companies bidding for the business, and has nothing whatsoever to do with helping the environment, reducing congestion or whatever

mb

PeteBrant

Quite possibly.

Its going to happen though, in some form or other, sure as eggs is eggs. So it's worth looking at what options are out there.

Depending on how you drive and what you own, it *could* work out considerably cheaper, or considerably more expensive.

r32

Dont tax people off the roads, provide a viable alternative .....

myblackwrx

iTrader: (1)

I'm more worried that it's in km not miles damn him

it's the UK where Imperial measurements rule not the fancy pants metric system

Martin2005

Blimey I agree with you again!

Fuel duty is like it or not the only fair way (although we all hate it) of taxing usage.

I'd still like them to find a way of rebating some tax to people who live out in the sticks where there are few viable alternatives and where fuel is more expensive.

PeteBrant

Agreed. But it doesn't do anything for congestion, which a per mile charge will. And this is bviously somethign that is big with all three main parties because they have all made noises about the same thing.

THe number of cars on the road is rising all the time, and cities have a finite amount of space, therefor you need controls.

So the theory goes anyway.

Geezer

Well, I do 12-15k miles a year, so if they scrapped my road tax (£200 odd) and got rid of the fuel duty, I reckon I would be quids in. £960-1200 max, so my road tax saving makes it effectively £760-£1000, and if fuel is taxed at about 70%, then my fuels costs will drop by £1600 ish. *

Bring it on!

Geezer

* I think that's right, I'm sure someone will correct it soon enough if it's not!

boomer

No it (a per mile charge) won't!!!!! Maybe a charge per mile per hour of the day per number of cars in the road at that exact moment in time per discount because the highways agency cocked up plus the weather plus etc etc etc plus the MASSIVE profit the operators of the scheme would be making!!!! Gravy and Train

Bollox - the more cars, the more (VED, duty, VAT etc) revenue - at least if you actually spend it on the roads

mb

PeteBrant

Well, you charge higher fees for certain routes/certain times of day, as you suggest.

I'm not convinced about the Massive profit angle. The London Congestion charge would be loss making were it not for the late payment fines. (Of course, ultimately, it did turn a profit, which by law, has to be put into transport spending)

That said, I don't beleive the primary reason for introducing road pricing schemes is to raise money.

Well fuel Duty/VAT from fuel has never been ring fenced for the roads, it just goes into the big pot that is tax revenue.

There are going to be many many more cars on the road in 10 years. WHere do they go? How do you stop certain areas grinding to a complete halt? Can you imagine a 50% increase of traffic on the M25?

I'm not saying I agree with pay per mile, I have a real problem with any form of tracking device. I'm just saying that, at the moment, it looks almost inevitable in the meduim term. To that end, what the Lib Dems have suggested is potentially not massively evil - Especially when compared to the recent trials that the BBC conducted based on Labours proposals

Leslie

When it was first introduced, the road fund tax was for exactly that and our road system was built and maintained by using it all for that purpose.

It is true that later governments have used it as a general tax and that is why the name was changed from "Road Fund" tax.

We now see that the motorist pays some £44 billion in taxes and the amount of money spent on the roads and including public transport last year was some £800 million! Now there is a comparison for you!

Does that seem to you to be morally right?,and does it seem fair to you that our roads are now so badly maintained that in comparison to countries over the Channel they seem like third world roads? Councils are not spending on roads as they should do because the Government won't give them a fair wedge of the road tax to make it possible. They are using the money for other wasteful purposes and allowing the roads to go to pot. Eventually they will deteriorate so badly that it will be too expensive just to repair them let alone improve them! Not that impressed at public transport either-our bus service is 3 hourly here!

When I see these sorts of facts, I do not think that there can be any justification that the motorist should be taxed any more than we already are.

Les

PeteBrant

Not sure where you are getting those numbers from Les, Transport has £20bn spent on it.

Comprehensive Spending Review 2007 : Directgov - Newsroom
But that isn't necessarily the case with road pricing.

Leslie

It was stated in the media Pete, and yes it might not appear to be more expensive initially, but it soon would be. The £800 million may well have had a portion added into the £20 billion you quoted.

Les

RJMS

iTrader: (2)

This all seems a little weird if you think about it carefully, at the moment assuming fuel tax is £0.5035 per litre (Wikipedia) then by the time you add on VAT if your car does 20 mpg then you are paying about 13.45p per mile in fuel tax + VAT, if however it does 30 mpg you are paying 8.96p. Obviously as mpg increases the cost per mile decreases right the way down to 4.48p at 60mpg.

So if they changed this to a charge per mile of the quoted 8p the 60mpg car driver doing 12,000 miles per year will be paying an extra £422 a year whereas the 20mpg car doing the same mileage (but presumably being charged 12p per mile) would actually be saving £174 a year compared with the present situation.

Obviously the removal of the annual road fund licence would also result in greater savings for less efficient cars as it is higher for them to start with.

Now don't get me wrong, I would not be complaining about all of this, but a proposal that apparently penalises more efficient cars and rewards less efficient ones does seem to be somewhat strange in this day and age (especially from the Lib Dems)