T HE NORMALLY placid and neutral Swiss are heading for a
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confrontation with almost every other European country — East and West. In retaliation against the Swiss imposition of taxing vehicles entering their countries, the rest of Europe is planning to tax Swiss vehicles.
Already five countries have imposed taxes and as many more are on the verge of doing so. Britain, as always, has exercised commendable patience. We thought we could make our moves through diplomatic channels, but this is apparently not possible.
Now Nicholas Ridley is considering legislation to balance the Swiss action. However, in relative terms there are very few Swiss vehicles entering the UK and it hardly merits legislation to collect such a small tax.
A more simple and effective method of taxing all road users, domestic and foreign, would be to abolish vehicle excise duty and add to fuel tax.
We have said this repeatedly and will continue to do so until some Secretary of State for Transport is bold enough to heed our argument.
The alternative would be for the Secretary of State to put forward logical reasons against the proposed system. We suspect there are none, and that this is a "Yes, Minister" situation where civil servants arc more concerned with their job security than business efficiency.