David Cameron promised his Government would be the greenest Government ever. Indeed, once elected, the Con-Dem Coalition continued their predecessor’s policy of making road tax cheaper for greener vehicles.
What Cameron failed to factor in (and his Government does appear to be more than usually prone to attack from the Law of Unintended Consequences) was that as a significant number of motorists switched to smaller cars, and cheaper road tax, government revenue would go down.
How does a Tory deal with lower income? The stock answer of privatising the road network (if it costs money, sell it off) had pretty much been ruled out (at least for the time being – although the Institute of Economic Affairs has recently called on the Government to sell the whole lot off). So what could be done?
It emerged over the weekend that the Government’s Big Idea is to introduce differential tax rates depending on what roads you use. Your standard road tax would cover you to drive on minor roads and some quite big ones – but you would have to pay a higher road tax if you wanted to take your vehicle onto motorways or major A roads.
It all conjures up a picture of the toffs driving their Bentleys down half empty motorways, while your average motorist queues in his or her Fiesta on the clogged up B roads. It’s doubtful that the Tory voters in English villages will be very happy – they are in danger of getting clogged up as drivers avoid the motorway bypasses that were built to free them of traffic. Nor is the haulage industry likely to welcome the new system.
Apparently the system would be monitored by a series of spy cameras: the cost of installing these throughout the motorway and major road network has not been released (probably because it hasn’t been estimated) and would be almost guaranteed to wipe out any increased revenue from the new tax.
Where we would be in Tower Hamlets is anyone’s guess. With two major east/west routes dividing the Borough into three horizontal strips, we could all be prisoners in our own neighbourhoods if the A11 and A12 were to be classed as major roads. Perhaps we should take a more longstanding piece of Tory advice and all “get on our bikes”.
There’s no definite date for the new tax to come in, so the Tories may just be kite flying and there may be time yet for them to save themselves from the Unintended Consequences of yet another Big Idea.