Road-user charging is always ten years away

Discussing road-user charging with Paul Clark, the Under Secretary of State for Transport is difficult, but to be fair it was hard with Alistair Darling and John Prescott too.

They continue to say that the introduction of road-user charging is ten years away.

But when I talk to the Tories, Libdems or Greens they give me a straight answer. Their answers might well be starkly different, but then they are clear about them.

Stephen Hammond for the Tories says no to national road-user charging, Norman Baker and Siân Berry, for the Libdems and Greens respectively, say a clear yes. Oh the ease of being in opposition.

But you try to get Paul to commit himself and it’s like sifting soot. Yes, it is difficult being in government. There are tough choices to be made. However, this government is good at continually telling us that there are tough choices without actually making them.

Twenty years ago when I helped found the ETA my position that a transport policy without road-user charging was worthless was ridiculed by (nearly) all and sundry. Yes it is easy to say the electorate will not buy it but that doesn’t make it wrong.

But I believe that if people could swap from the universe that had a Britain with road-user charging over to a parallel universe that had only the present system, the vast majority of British people would want to keep road-user charging. The reason is simply – it works better.

If we rely on politicians we will not get anywhere. For politicians see the next election and do what is necessary to win it. What we need to do is find statesmen or women who can see a good policy and sell it to the people and because of such a stance go on to win the next election.

What is road-user charging and why is it important? – the subject in more detail