Kindly accounts aid railways
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IIORMAN FOWLER, MP, he Opposition spokesman m transport, made the point irne and again that a kindly iccounting system had .elieved British Rail freight )If track and signalling costs Nhich it shared with pastenger traffic.
This amounted to a hidden infrastructure subsidy, Mr Fowler argued.
The Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders, obviously worried about the effect of road fund licence fees being angled for different vehicle types, on the manufacture and sales of goods vehicles, asked that no .measures radically to change the present system should be introduced, except under certain conditions.
These were that agreement should be reached on the harmonisation of commercial vehicle dimensions and weights and on harmonisation of commercial vehicle taxation with the EEC. There should be seven years notice to give adequate time to bring revisions of model ranges into production.
The Society, too, was strongly opposed to a social cost tax for road vehicles for similar reasons to other organisations.
In our view the Government will undoubtedly welcome the opportunity of demonstrating to the environmental lobby that it is prepared to penalise the heavy lorry. However, the fact that they will be paying for the penalty themselves, as they are members of the public, surely cannot have escaped the environmentalists.
The Government might take the view that increasing taxation on the heavy goods vehicle will compensate, in some mea
sure for the subsidies it is committed to providing for other modes of transport.
Undoubtedly, it would be sensible to wait till the EEC taxation on commercial vehicles has been harmonised, as suggested by the SMMT, before altering the present vehicle taxation system. This is almost certain to involve heavier tax payments.
The draft directive has been under discussion since 1968 and the DTp says that it could be introduced later this year.
However, the Treasury could argue that harmonisation is another opportunity, to further increase tax. It seems inevitable that hauliers will have to pay more vehicle tax. What has to be decided is the method of applying it. CM