On Radio Humberside this morning, Martin Deane of Hull & East Riding Green Party called for the scrapping of Road Tax:

"The Green Party will scrap Road Tax altogether. Government plans will make the grossly unfair Road Tax even more unfair again with some car taxes planned to double. After all the recent oil hikes, the motorist deserves this bonus

“Roads still have to be paid for, so we would transfer costs to fuel duty but we spread the costs and bin the Road Tax. And – most importantly - we use the taxes for the one thing that will future-proof transport: attractive, affordable public transport for all.

“The problems of oil aren’t going away. It will continue to become scarcer. Meanwhile oil corporations are hugely powerful and are making vast profits from our misery. But a responsible government should seek to protect us from rising costs from speculation, firstly, but also increasing scarcity – by precisely investing in public transport and tempting people out of their cars. Government’s job is not to dump costs on us and make us pay through the nose!

“You can’t call these £2 billion of taxes ‘green taxes’ without spending them on Britain's number one transport priority: affordable, reliable public transport for everyone - as the Green Party has been saying for years!

“Instead of creating a windfall from Road Tax, the government should be taxing the huge windfall profits the oil majors are making. AND using that to create attractive, affordable and reliable public transport for us all.

“But the Government plans MORE road building, and MORE cars paying MORE taxes. But for these plans – like for oil – their days are numbered.

“People understand taxes – they approve of spending on education, on health, on welfare for the vulnerable. But they deplore government spending on many areas. Here government is choosing to make the oil companies even richer, standing by as oil goes through the roof while the oil majors make the biggest profits in human history.

“The Green Party stands for a transport focus on the need to future-proof the next generation by providing affordable, attractive public transport for all. This won't exploit people like the present rule of oil. 

“Yes, alternative energies have a part to play, fascinating products like India’s Air Car and the strides forward in hybrids and electric cars. But major questions remain about taking this route wholesale. Do we really want a world built on the next level of inequality? Because there are simply not the resources worldwide to do all over again what we have done with the internal combustion engine over the last century.

“The major uses for alternative energy isn’t individual transportation, it’s so we can safeguard basic energy needs for the future, like what we use to heat with and cook with.

Martin Deane

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Telegraph – 4.8.8 – Road Tax plans in disarray.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/motoring/main.jhtml?xml=/motoring/2008/08/04/mngreentax104.xml

The Government plans huge hikes in Road Tax which are unfair on the larger cars for larger families, up to £450 cost.  In May we saw 1000 trucks converge on London in protest at fuel prices – at least this will ease the burden.