Views
A need to be fair to the rural motorist - for The Inverness Courier
LAST week the Prime Minister responded to the 1.8 million people who signed a petition on the 10 Downing Street website opposing the idea of road pricing. Mr Blair’s response attempted to have it both ways, but I believe he was wrong to water down the already lukewarm Government support for this idea.
Road pricing would mean that drivers would pay per mile of road used. But, importantly, the price would vary according to how congested the road is and how good the public transport alternatives are. So, a driver in the Highlands might pay 2p a mile whereas one in central London might pay £2 a mile.
This would be much fairer to the rural motorist, who has no alternative but to use a car and where long distances mean high costs, whilst giving a much stronger financial incentive to big-city motorists not to use their car.
Combined with encouragement for people to switch to much more efficient vehicles, this measure could have a hugely positive environmental impact. For most of us in the Highlands choosing a more fuel-efficient vehicle when we come to change our car is one of the biggest things we could do to cut our CO2 emissions.
But it can only work if fuel duty is reduced and then removed as road pricing is introduced, so that the overall amount of money taken remains the same. That way the change encourages people to alter their behaviour, rather than just being another new tax.
This would be a huge shift in the way that driving is taxed, and it would take time to introduce. But it is a scheme that should
have strong support from everyone who is concerned about the increasingly evident impact that climate change is having on our planet.
In the meantime, one other measure would make sense, a reduction of fuel duty in rural areas. This would reduce the excessive price that we pay for fuel, which adds to the extra costs of long distances where there are poor alternatives.
The Government should make both changes, and I will continue to press to them.
PENSIONS SCANDAL
The scandal of the Government’s failure to properly compensate the 115,000 people whose occupational pension schemes have collapsed in the last few years continues to fester.
By refusing to bow to the inevitable, the Government disgracefully prolongs the agony of those affected, including many in the Highlands. There is now a good scheme in place that will protect people whose pensions collapse in future, and the same level of benefit should be paid to those under discussion in the court. Sometimes justice has a price, and in this case that price must be paid.
Posted on: 27/02/2007
