Scrap Road Tax and charge the polluters instead
16 July 2008
Caroline Lucas MEP, Green Party Principal Speaker, has condemned Alastair Darling's decision to delay the planned increase in fuel duty for a second time.
Dr Lucas argues that cutting fuel prices, increasing fuel consumption, can only deepen the looming crisis. Instead, Greens want the Road Tax scrapped, moving the responsibility onto fuel duty, a windfall tax on excess oil company profits, and an increase in public transport investment.
Dr Lucas said:
"Once again, we're being held hostage by the big energy companies, and are paying for it at the pump. Alastair Darling thinks subsidising higher fuel use will help, but that is exactly the thinking that caused the problem in the first place.
"The government needs to give motorists a fair deal: scrap Road Tax and charge the biggest polluters most, and spend the money on real public transport alternatives so people have the choice not to drive.
"The real cost of motoring has fallen by 4 per cent since 2005, yet the oil lobby has consistently argued for more road building, more traffic, more pollution. They have attempted to block every effort to reduce our dependency on petrol.
"The inevitable result is that oil prices - and oil profits - rise. And the lobbyists demand that the rest of us pay for it through our taxes, or in cuts to services.
"If Darling cared about motorists or our future, he would reinstate the fuel duty rise but abolish the unfair Road Tax. He would levy a windfall tax on the massive profits the oil corporations are making out of our misery. And he would spend the money giving us te affordable, reliable public transport we desperately need."
