It's a 'crash tax' claim the Tories
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r WAS wrong for the Naional Health Service to bear he heavy cost of accidents, aid Mr David Ennals, the ocial Services Secretary, then he defended the Goeminent plan to make vehicle wners pay for this treatment.
Speaking during a Cornions debate on coming legisition, Mr Ennals said that the harge was expected to work ut at about £3 per vehicle.
The principle was not new.
had been applied since the 930s, but the operation of the resent principle brought in illy a small sum of money.
Accidents cost the NHS bout £40 million a year, and if dditional funds were not lade available, cuts would ave to be made in other spects of the service. From the Opposition Front Bench, Mr Patrick Jenkin spoke of a "crash tax".
Tories did not oppose the NHS charging for treatment in appropriate cases, but the Government proposed a flatrate indiscriminate charge on all motorists irrespective of blame for the accident.
In other words, said Mr Jenkin, this was simply another tax, and it was wrong for it to masquerade as anything else.
He suggested that if the scheme had to be introduced, another £3 should be added to vehicle excise duty. That would not require extra staff for collection, or add an extra penny to the cost of collection.
Mr Robert McCrindle (Tory, Brentwood and Ongar) point ed out that the collection point was likely to be the insurance brokers. It was estimated that between £71/2 million and £10 million additional cost would be involved, with the brokers acting as unpaid tax collectors.
Mr Jenkin advised the Government to take note of the strong protests and the alternative course open to them.
The only reason the scheme was being operated in this way, claimed Mr Jenkin, was that the cost of it would then come on the budget of the Social Services Secretary, rather than that of the Environmental Secretary.
For that reason the Government had come up with this "cockeyed" scheme.