Transport Select Committee announces plans to tax Motorists by the mile as EV use increases – Fair Fuel Campaign responds

While the UK is adjusting to new Highway Code changes, just days later, the Transport Select Committee has announced that the government should tax motorists based on miles travelled as the use of petrol and diesel vehicles decreases.

Responding to the news, the Fair Fuel Campaign is calling for more consultation with drivers to establish the best and fairest way to replace the Government’s income from fuel duty.

A spokesman FairFuelUK said:

“Those smug comfortably well-off Electric Vehicle owners and evangelists are in for a shock. Their recent years free use of UK’s roads, with their heavyweight particulate generating chariots, is to come to an end, very soon.”

“The ‘out of touch with road users’ Government, so influenced by Lycra class SPADs and their vocal minority cycling lobby, has shot itself in the fiscal foot, by not having any real plans to replace the 5th largest income to the Treasury, in their hell-bent myopic push for us all to drive electric.”

“It is only right that all road users, including cyclists pay for the roads they cycle or drive on. How can anyone disagree? But here’s the thing, any new road user tax must be fair and equitable and more of these punitive tax revenues must be hypothecated for new roads and their upkeep too.”

“It is vital that existing diesel and petrol vehicle owners pay absolutely no more than under the current fuel duty process, with the haulage industry getting, preferential rates to help reduce inflation and aid economic recovery.”

“This Government that has given us dangerous smart motorways, a perilous new Highway Code, the un-consulted* 2030 new fossil fuelled car sales ban, dozens of well-paid urban sanctimonious cycling commissioners plus the needles and costly net-zero aspiration, remains clueless on the future of road taxation of vehicle usage.”

The APPG for Fair Fuel for Motorists and Hauliers in their recent EV report at https://fairfueluk.com/APPG-FFUK/17/ – recommended: “..The Government should create a Road User Consultative Group, to include cyclists, motor bikers, cars, van drivers, taxis, and truckers. This vital policy advisory panel should be made up of associations and organisations who represent grass root road users, together with the APPG for Fair Fuel for UK Motorists and Hauliers but not the profit motivated commercial groups or highly financed green campaigners. Their remit to advise, scrutinise and support the Transport, Environment and Treasury Departments on all aspects of rural and urban road transport strategies, air quality plans and future vehicle taxation.

James Sutherland MP said: “I welcome the recommendations of this report that highlights the need for a viable move to clean fuels that does not impact adversely on the economy, drivers or businesses. We must also ensure that all road users are involved in the development of road transport strategy and so I particularly support the idea of a Road User Consultative Group. I urge policy makers to consider very carefully the recommendations of this well researched and informative piece of work by the Fair Fuel APPG.”

Philip Davies Conservative MP said: “The arbitrary proposed 2030 sales ban of new diesel and petrol vehicles is one of the Government’s nanny-state interventions to vainly try to achieve its unrealistic and hugely expensive Net Zero target. Unfortunately, this policy has no regard for our road users and will pile additional costs on to hard pressed consumers and businesses. “I welcome this report’s recommendations – particularly regarding the establishment of a Road User Consultative Group. This way our road users and taxpayers can demonstrate clearly to Government the strength of feeling and concern about their current approach.”

ABD Spokesman Paul Biggs said: “Governments have been very keen on introducing a punitive system of road pricing since 2007 when the ABD played a key campaigning role in helping to defeat the unpopular plans of the Blair government. Electric vehicles have provided a new impetus for road pricing, but there are cost-effective alternative ways of taxing EVs for road use including a weight-based VED or VED based on kWhr battery size. New potential legislation provides a neat answer to the problem of taxing EVs for road use although the law also has some potentially sinister implications. The ABD remains opposed to road pricing, which has always been intended to be more about the intrusive and regressive pricing of cars off the roads rather than providing a fair taxation system.”

Howard Cox, Founder of FairFuelUK said: “Wake up Grant Shapps and Rishi Sunak and get in the real world, please incentivise, don’t punish behind a virtue signalling pointless green dogma! And above all, for a change, talk with drivers not just cyclists as to how road user taxation should change for the better. Your anti-driver policies are alienating the very voters who backed you for the first time in 2019.”