UK must prepare for widespread road pricing, says infrastructure tsar

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2024/oct/10/uk-road-pricing-infrastructure-electric-vehicles-35bn-tax-shortfall

Posted by masterblaster0

31 Comments

  1. very_unconsciously on

    > Armitt said the debate around road pricing would only grow as the government steadily lost revenue on its two main motoring taxes – vehicle excise duty and fuel duty, which together raise about £35bn a year. Neither are levied on electric vehicles.

    I can’t think of an alternative, to be fair. The people who use the roads really should pay for their upkeep.

  2. It’s not like they haven’t already figured out how to tax EVs.

    Just yesterday a letter dropped through the door from the DVLA telling me my EV will be subject to road tax from 2025.

    Public EV chargers are taxed at 20% and domestic electricity continues to be taxed at 5%.

  3. Not going to be very popular with rural population and others outside of London for whom public transport is something they see in London on TV.

  4. Clearly they will need to do something to replace the taxes on petrol and diesel if everyone went electric but my concern is they would replace it with something that is taxed even more.

    Pay per mile is the fairest method as that’s essentially how it currently works since you buy more fuel if you drive more miles.

    But no doubt they will go overboard with tolls on motorways instead that end up costing the average driver more than we pay in fuel duty tax now. I could also see them hammering owners of ICE vehicle twice with both taxes at the same time.

  5. Alarmed_Inflation196 on

    Government: we tax things with expensive externalities to discourage you

    Public: ok we’ve stopped

    Government: great but we still want to charge you

    Public: ?!?!

  6. Labour are going to be in serious electoral trouble if the very rich get away with it again.

    Taxation on the essentials of life is really just income tax by any other name. Won’t be an essential you say? What with the vast sums being spent on public transport and how good it’s soon going to be…

  7. Be interesting to work out how much you pay per mile now via fuel duty and VAT, then compare it to the various proposed rates.

  8. How very socialist of them, punish the poorest and most disenfranchised members of the population by pricing them into further into abject poverty.

  9. Just an idea, instead of paying through the nose for private companies to build then when they bid on the cost being £xBn then after 3 minutes of work go “oh no we underestimated it” we hire the council workers and highway agency staff to do it, yunno public highways built by actual public departments

  10. Oldschool-fool on

    I said this years ago, if they ever get everyone into electric cars ( which I highly doubt) it will end up costing us way more than driving ice cars ever did .

  11. Joke is that petrol isint really going anywhere for a while but they’ll introduce this anyway, pretending that it is and get the double duties to throw into National Middle Management Blackhole. Easy money

  12. JustGarlicThings2 on

    I don’t feel that this is inherently unfair but because Labour are very authoritarian leaning they’ll use this as an excuse to put trackers on every car rather than some sort of privacy-positive based system. They’ll implement the most draconian form of this rather than doing something simple like basing tax off of MOT mileage. Sure people fiddle with MOT mileage but as soon as it becomes tax fraud I’m sure there will be methods and resources for the government to crack down on it.

  13. What about cars that are currently free to tax, ie classic cars?

    Will they now be subject to tax as and when they’re used?

  14. Im totally fine with this in theory.

    My concern is that our alternatives to cars are weak:

    • Buses barely function outside of a few cities

    • Trains are incredibly expensive at peak times

    • Cycling is largely unsafe due to bad infrastructure

    If there are no realistic alternatives for certain routes, the road pricing should be very very low.

  15. Disillusioned_Pleb01 on

    The not having anyone non complaint to charge london ulez cameras are ready, along with the blue print for whichever city wants to buy the know how and technology.

  16. How is this the system we landed on? What was wrong with the idea of taxing by vehicle weight or Kwhr/KM or something?

  17. “We pay for all our other infrastructure services as we use them” the problem is that in rural areas, some ppl, such as myself, simply have no choice but to own & use our own cars, as public transport simply does not exist in those areas. Also, it tends to be the less well-off who live in those areas, so a road pricing scheme would cause more issues for them as well.

  18. IcantNameThings1 on

    I won’t be surprised if they start putting taxes on our farts as well. With all that carbon dioxide. We should really be taxed.

  19. Government: Emissions from diesel / petrol cars are costing the taxpayer billions per year. Switch to EV to save money.

    Me: So no need to tax them, as they save money.

    Government: $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

  20. So, since the majority of goods are trucked…. that means prices on virtually everything will go up. Again.

  21. English_linguist on

    UK residents being bent over barrel at every turn.

    Quick! Someone post about another assault.

  22. If the government put a tracker on my car to in force a pay by mile scheme I am protesting on the streets. Total invasion of privacy.

    I also hate toll roads. They encourage people to drive on less efficient routes and create traffic.

    Taxing vehicles by weight seems a lot more fair.

  23. PermissionBest2379 on

    Well if they spent that money on the roads then there’s a chance the roads wouldn’t be in such a poor state..

  24. Inside_Boot2810 on

    All those in this thread _salivating_ at taxing EV owners (despite being encouraged to adopt), I can’t *wait* for them to come and tax you more than they already are.  Let’s see how excited you are then.