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Tories want foreign trucks to pay for using UK roads

23rd August 2007
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Page 8, 23rd August 2007 — Tories want foreign trucks to pay for using UK roads
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Which of the following most accurately describes the problem?

The Conservative Party plans to charge trucks for using UK roads — which will be built with private investment. Roanna Avison reports.

IN WHAT APPEARS to be a replica of the failed Lorry Road User Charging (LRUC) scheme, the Conservative Party has outlined plans to charge foreign trucks to use UK roads.

The party's economic competitive policy group, chaired by John Redwood,suggests that any future Conservative government should implement a system of charging all foreign-registered trucks for their mileage on British roads.

To ensure British operators are not penalised, the group suggests that either the fuel duty on diesel or the rate of truck excise duty should be reduced.

Despite CM Is questions, the party could give no indication as to how their proposed scheme would differ from the LRUC, which was included in the 2001 Pre-Budget Report but finally scrapped in 2005 as an unviaHe proposal.

The Conservatives have also suggested that the state of the roads in the country is so poor that private investA Geoff posse ment would be a

requirement to get the infrastructure up to the necessary capacity.

Roger King, chief executive at the Road Haulage Association, says the recognition of the need for additional road infrastructure is welcome. But he adds: We are cautious [about] this renewed enthusiasm for lorry road user charging, however well intentioned it is in seeking to achieve an urgently needed levelling of the fuel duties that are paid by UK and foreign hauliers."

tter He adds that the Conservative plan sounds like a re-run of the LRUC scheme which was abandoned in 2005.apparently on the grounds of impracticality and cost.

Geoff Dossetter, external affairs director at the Freight Transport Association, agrees that the plan

appears to be similar to the LRUC: -Such a scheme is attractive because it would charge foreign lorries for using UK roads and help equalise the enormous difference in operating costs between the UK and the rest of Europe.

"However, the UK road transport industry needs a guarantee from the Conservatives that there would be no real increase in the level of taxation on UK commercial vehicles for the foreseeable future,he warns.

Regarding the idea of using private investment to improve the infrastructure. Dosset ter says these plans are common sense and are more necessary than ever.

FOR MORE ON THIS AND RELATED SUBJECTS

www,roadtransoort.um/cm


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