MacShane ask Transport Secretary to Consider Motorway Vignette

16 February

As part of an overall policy of making motorists and lorry drivers accept responsibility for the costs of building and maintaining motorways, Denis MacShane MP has argued for charges to be levied for those drivers, including himself, who regularly use motorways. One easy-to-implement system would be to require all motorways users to pay for a “vignette” or sticker in the windscreen with an annual charge that would entitle them to use motorways. Cars in rural areas, or cars in suburban areas through which motorways run could avoid the charge if they desired. The approach of Whitehall is to wait for a road pricing scheme which could charge drivers according to the distance travelled. MacShane argues that while such a scheme is being developed and perfected it would be possible in the meantime to bring in a vignette scheme which could raise up to £1 billion in revenue to help support rural transport and public transport generally.

In the Commons this week this exchange took place between MacShane and the Transport Secretary, Alistair Darling, who was answering questions on road pricing and told the Commons “We need to examine whether it would be better to replace the existing system of paying for road use with a distance-based charging.” MacShane then asked the Transport Secretary:

Mr. Denis MacShane (Rotherham) (Lab): While my right hon. Friend is working on that, are we not making the best the enemy of the good? Many of our motorways are almost urban slip roads around the great cities of Britain, yet we have one of the few motorway systems that involves no charge. Will my right hon. Friend consider introducing in the interim a vignette of £30 to £40 for motorway users, including all foreign cars and lorries that come into Britain, but allowing rural people who do not use motorways not to pay that extra money? Such a simple and practical scheme could be put in place until his all-singing and all-dancing road pricing and satellite in the sky operation comes into being, for which we might have to wait a little after the end of his term of office.

Mr. Darling: Having been here for almost four years, I would not bank on that. I am not sure how much thought my right hon. Friend has given to the matter, but it simply would be neither feasible nor desirable simply to toll motorways if we thought that we would adopt a completely different method of charging for roads a few years later. I have said before that a national road pricing scheme is some years off, but I believe that we can pilot such a scheme regionally in the next five years or so. Simply charging for some roads, but not for others—[Interruption.] I shall come on to the vignette in a moment. Although my right hon. Friend prides himself on his knowledge of matters European, I think that he would find that the Commission would come down very hard on us if we tried to impose something that discriminated against foreign drivers, because the Single European Act is supposed to stop that. The short answer is that I do not think that he is advocating a good idea, but I will be more than happy to discuss it with him afterwards.

After this exchange Denis MacShane explained the thinking behind his ideas.

“What I am proposing a simple window sticker priced at say £30 which you would put in the windscreen of your car in order to drive on motorways. There would be no exemptions.

“The total number of vehicles in the UK is 32.3 million, of which 27 million are cars. A £30 vignette if applied just to all cars would raise £810 million.

“Rural drivers or drivers who use a tiny section of a motorway for urban commuting could decide not to have the vignette.

“The occasional police check on entry roads into motorways would get most people buying one.
“Some of the revenue could be used to improve transport for remote areas, and thus have a social purpose.
“It has nothing to do with Euro vignettes, with motorway tolls, congesting charging etc. It is fully EU compatible as it applies to all vehicles using UK motorways – British, foreign or cars/lorries coming into the UK.

“Alistair Darling charged me with some knowledge of Europe. True. I have seen this working in Switzerland. I have also seen the political funerals of 8 German transport ministers who tried to bring in distance charging using gantries and satellites.

“One day maybe we will have an effective road-distance charging mechanism but in the meantime why not raise some revenue, make clear using motorways paid for by all taxpayers is a choice to be paid for, and say some of this revenue will service social/green purposes.

“I had a long talk on this with the Transport Secretary when I was a minister but got the impression that anything out of Europe was no go for the UK. Of course we need research to continue to get to a workable distance pricing scheme though I would not underestimate the anger of people who have to drive long distances – visiting sick grannies in Perth or Cornwall, or those who have to drive for work reasons being told they have to pay a big new tax.

“But ad interim I remain puzzled and dismayed at the dismissal out of hand of a vignette scheme which would raise serious money, on a socially equitable basis, as well as send out the first serious signal that those who use motorways should pay a little more than those who do not.”