Forget the petition. Britain will have some form of road pricing, like it or
not, sooner or later. The idea has been about for decades. Whether it is
dictated by congestion rationing, revenue-raising or global warming does not
matter. The time has come. But first there will be an almighty row.
An Englishman’s car is his castle on wheels. As Margaret Thatcher subsidised
house purchase in obeisance to middle-class voters, so Tony Blair has done
the same to mobility. He has made motoring (and flying) cheaper than ever in
recent history, while making trains and buses more expensive. From the
moment he capitulated to the fuel tax lobby in 2000 he has run scared of
motorists. Politicians were once warned never to take on the Pope or the
National Union of Mineworkers. These have been replaced by the RAC and
easyJet.
Unfortunately the planet now ails. Cheap mobility seemed a good idea in 1997
but it has become the great enemy. John Prescott’s concept of a new Labour
environment, of a Barratt home in the green belt, a tankful of petrol and a
£12 ticket to Lanzarote, is the devil incarnate. Gordon Brown’s Treasury
cannot see the point in spending £1 billion a year laying mile upon mile of
tarmac to please Blair’s electors when they instantly jam it solid and
demand more.
Meanwhile ministers have been taught an embarrassing lesson in political
innovation by local government, indeed by the detested Ken Livingstone.
This week he extends his West End congestion charge deep into Tory Kensington
and Chelsea and plans to up the daily rate to £25 for gas-guzzlers. While he
has paid lip service to “consultation”, he has disregarded virulent
opposition and gone ahead anyway. London’s congestion charge may have had a
modest impact on congestion (chaotic road repairs render statistics
meaningless) and has proved an expensive way of collecting taxes, but some
version of it is being studied by every major world city. In some shape or
form it is here for keeps.
There was a time when rising demand for roads was to be met by demolishing
cities and rebuilding them with dual carriageways, including along Oxford
Street and Strand in London. Today such destructive predict-and-provide is
dead. As the transport secretary Douglas Alexander said last week: “The
government has no choice but to deal with the growing problem of congestion:
we don’t have the luxury of doing nothing.” That way is through the pricing
system. It is a pity the same thought did not occur to his Labour
predecessors.
Just as railways are finding it ever harder to accommodate passengers who wish
to “turn up and walk on”, so roads are finding it hard to accept
unrestricted flows of traffic. Merely raising petrol duty, a general
mobility tax, is nowadays seen as too crude. Opposition to satellite
tracking is fierce and understandable, especially when proposed by a
government with so little concern for civil liberties (and so inept at
computing). But variable licensing can take many forms. Britain is behind
America in road tolling, just as it is behind Europe in residential
licensing and in regulating the hours when delivery vehicles may use
inner-city streets.
Ways will be found to curb hypermobility because neither the streets below nor
the atmosphere above can handle its consequences. Charging individuals to
use scarce and therefore valuable space is sensible. While no charge will
ever seem wholly fair, road pricing is at least fairer than taxing nonusers
to build more roads for users. Airlines can argue that the space through
which they pass is free. Roads and railways cannot make that claim.
Since Edmund Burke it has been acknowledged that to tax and to please is given
to no man. British governments therefore try to conceal what they are about.
The iron law used to be that Britons paid their income tax in sorrow and
their (local) rates in anger. This made local taxes the more unpopular but
it gave them greater democratic “bite”. The Tories in the 1980s and 1990s,
when introducing then ending the poll tax, foolishly reduced local taxation,
and it now raises just 5% of public revenue, against 18% in Germany and 50%
in Sweden. It was fiscal cowardice.
Margaret Thatcher’s contribution to Labour party policy was to persuade Blair
and Brown that the resulting burden could not be shifted onto income tax.
Brown therefore had to impose his extra taxes on expenditure, “stealth
taxes” that have taken myriad forms, from pension funds to lotteries to
speed cameras. He has lately reverted to letting council tax take some of
the strain. But the chief burden has fallen on the most irresponsible form
of taxation — borrowing, or “spend today and tax tomorrow”. The gambit has
worked, so far. Brown has contrived to protect a reputation for prudence.
Now the need to find new sources of government revenue has combined with the
green agenda. Ministers may have been shocked by the opposition registered
to road pricing but it is hard to see why. “Consulting” on a new tax is like
asking the public to pay for sunshine. The predictable answer is a lemon.
“E-consultation”, overlaid with hypocrisy about “listening but not bending”,
was stupid.
The 21st-century explosion in hypermobility, product of more leisure, cheaper
fuel and expanding social horizons, must somehow be brought within the
bounds of climate change. To a free marketeer that means employing the price
mechanism both to ration and to limit environmental damage. While higher
taxes on petrol will play a part, fairness demands variable taxes on the use
of road space.
Fairness is crucial to the imposition of new taxes. If they are imposed on big
cars at peak hours they should be lowered on small ones off-peak. If they
are to rise on those who drive to work, they should be cut on those who work
at home. Why put a tax on building repairs while leaving new buildings tax
free? Green taxes should be about give and take, not just take.
The fury emanating from motorists over road pricing has in large part been due
to them feeling disempowered. While car use may be 9% cheaper in real terms
than in 1997, drivers see motoring regulation as nothing short of
vindictive. It has brought law-abiding Britons the closest they ever come to
the criminal law, with punishments that seem unfair and disproportionate.
Campaigns against speed cameras, like those against parking fines, are less
about money than about the manner of their imposition. The A40 speed trap
(50-40-50 along a single stretch of dual carriageway) has joined the hidden
camera and the traffic warden with a tape measure in public demonology. To
chauffeur-driven ministers this may seem trivial. To common citizens they
are a talisman of all that is most arrogant and mean minded in British
public administration. The government appears to be raising money by
trickery.
The government should note why Labour lost the London borough of Camden at
last year’s election. It did so because the borough sent armies of wardens
into each neighbourhood to clamp and tow away any car over its allotted
parking time. Considerable inconvenience and a £300 fine were the price of
often a tiny offence. The stated reason for this extortionate regime was
that motoring is virtually the only revenue-earner that Gordon Brown allows
local councils to keep for themselves. (In Westminster it raises more than
council tax.)
Taxation should be allied to representation. In Camden’s case the “tax” was
local, as was the representation. The new Tory/Liberal Democrat council has
ended the clamping and tow-away policy. London’s congestion charge was also
democratic. Livingstone never concealed his intention to proceed with it,
while his Tory opponent, Steve Norris, pledged to abolish it. On that score
at least Londoners cannot complain.
Electors in referendums across Britain have so far rejected road pricing and
congestion charging. But as with the Downing Street petition, they were
asked a silly question, whether or not they wanted a new tax. The principle
of road pricing must be laid down by central government, but the manner of
its implementation (other than on motorways) will be more acceptable the
more it is devolved onto local government. That way, the public will see
that revenue raised is used for public transport and not vanish into the
Treasury’s coffers. That way, local people can choose how they want to be
taxed and how they want to benefit. The Downing Street petition has put the
clock back a decade.
simon.jenkins@sunday-times.co.uk
