“It would mean significant reductions in congestion, and there will be less pollution because a lot of pollution is caused by queuing traffic.”We have reached the point where congestion is seriously blighting the lives of an increasing number of people. We cannot build our way out of the problem.” Most travel would not incur charges, he said.It sounds easy, but it is not. For the Government, it is another reminder of the intractability of the transport question.The proposals are sure to be unpopular with average voters such as the “Mondeo Man” whom Labour credits with its 1997 victory. The Tory shadow Transport Secretary, Theresa May, called the idea “an attempt at a sort of stealth tax, trying to price the motorist off the road”.
(There was no mention of the fact that the Tories funded pilot versions of similar schemes when in power in 1995).There are few signs that the Government is in any hurry to implement the scheme. A spokesman for the Department for Transport, Local Government and the Regions said: “There is no prospect of introducing road-user charging for vehicles other than lorries in the present decade. As [the commission] itself acknowledges, it is an issue for the longer term beyond the Government’s 10-year plan for transport.”But the Government urgently needs solutions to congestion. On coming to power in 1997, Labour’s deputy leader, John Prescott, was eager to be judged on a pledge to reduce the number of road journeys by the time the next election came He failed. In fact, the only thing that cut the number of road journeys, in the short term, was the 2000 fuel blockades. The pledge was dropped.The first politician to struggle with road pricing will be Ken Livingstone, the Mayor of London, who plans to introduce a £5 daily charge for vehicles to enter a central zone in the capital.
Although the plans were announced in his manifesto, they have been held up by technical issues and the political problem of introducing such unpopular charges.Professor Begg, however, approaches the issue not as a politician but as a pragmatic economist He knows the ideas will not be popular. “I will not be surprised or upset if ministers distance themselves from this because politically it could give them a headache,” he said.Professor Andrew Oswald, an economist at Warwick University, says charging is long overdue and would not hit the poor. “Sensible road tolls would be high during morning and evening peaks. Those earning good wages would travel then but pay for the privilege of a quick journey. What is wrong with that?” Moreover, he says, many of Britain’s poorest people do not own a car.Tony Bosworth, a transport campaigner for Friends of the Earth, said: “It’s very interesting, although to some extent there’s already a taxation system for charging for every mile travelled – it’s called fuel tax.”The UK has avoided road pricing schemes for years. Yet Canada, Norway and Singapore have introduced electronic forms, while most tourists who drive in Europe are familiar with toll roads.Professor Begg says: “At the moment we have a very blunt and unfair [fuel] taxation system with those who can sometimes least afford it – users of quieter roads at off-peak times – subsidising commuters competing for space in the rush hour.” Perhaps, in the end, that sense of unfairness will trickle through.
