As the old budget thread is way down in the list I thought I would start one for the up coming Labour budget. What do we think will be in it and what difference will that make to us.
This a Purgatory thread and will need adhere to those standards - just thought I’d remind everyone as there always seems to be some confusion when there’s a parallel thread in Hell.
I'd hope for an increase in tax on motorists as well. The cut in fuel duty that the previous government put in can be reversed. The zero rate VED on EVs is already going to end in April. At some point looking at duty on EV charging, above the small amount of VAT already charged. It would be good for a significant proportion of this extra income will be used to fund improved public transport, cycling infrastructure etc to give people an alternative to driving.
I know they've said they won't be increasing income tax, but those of us on higher incomes can certainly be doing more to support public services.
I'd hope for an increase in tax on motorists as well. The cut in fuel duty that the previous government put in can be reversed. The zero rate VED on EVs is already going to end in April. At some point looking at duty on EV charging, above the small amount of VAT already charged. It would be good for a significant proportion of this extra income will be used to fund improved public transport, cycling infrastructure etc to give people an alternative to driving.
I know they've said they won't be increasing income tax, but those of us on higher incomes can certainly be doing more to support public services.
An increase on fuel tax is not going to help those who cannot even walk to the nearest bus stop.
I don't remember Conservative governments laying on free mobility scooters or implementing schemes to help the elderly or housebound.
I had a friend in the West Midlands whose husband has a physical disability. She resigned her position as a Conservative Councillor and left the party after she turned up to a branch meeting to hear her fellow Tories scoffing about 'disabled people', dismissing the unemployed as feckless scroungers and taking the piss out of anyone and everyone less fortunate than themselves.
When it comes to those severely disabled enough to not be able to use active transport or public transport, whatever solution you put in place is more inclusive if it also includes those who can't drive either. Driving dependency is not a good thing - it results in people losing their mobility completely if and when they also lose the ability to drive, and people holding onto their driving privilege long after they've become dangerous through loss of physical or mental faculties.
I'd hope for an increase in tax on motorists as well. The cut in fuel duty that the previous government put in can be reversed. The zero rate VED on EVs is already going to end in April. At some point looking at duty on EV charging, above the small amount of VAT already charged.
I'm fundamentally opposed to duty on EV charging, because it discriminates between people who have the ability to charge at home and those who need to purchase charging.
EVs need to pay their share of road costs; I'd suggest an annual charge dependent on the odometer increase since last year and the axle weight of the vehicle would be a reasonable way of charging for road use for all vehicles, in a way that doesn't discriminate arbitrarily.
If you have a home charger installed, that would record the power used to charge EVs (many electricity suppliers will charge you less per kWh than the regular price, so they must be keeping track of that), which means duty on home charging could be applied.
Of course, low power chargers that just plug into the domestic mains supply would be just another couple of kW being run overnight, and would look no different to someone drinking a lot of tea (the power requirements of an electric kettle being similar). But, when I use my little charger it's not getting the cheaper rates that I could get if I was able to install a proper charger at home.
But, the difficulties of putting a duty onto EV charging equivalent to fuel duty is something that is part of "looking at". I don't know if all EVs do, but mine records all charging regardless of when and where (so, I can go into the computer and bring up how many kWh I've put in, compare that with home many miles I've driven and come up with 4.3miles/kWh or thereabouts as my average sine I bought the car), so in my case there's a computer log available to base that on, which could be read at annual service time. But, even without that an assumed 4.3miles/kWh and annual mileage will be pretty close (adjust for average mileage for other cars). Which would, of course, be the same as annual charges based on odometer increases scaled to vehicle efficiency.
Which would, of course, be the same as annual charges based on odometer increases scaled to vehicle efficiency.
Road costs depend on axle weight and vehicle miles, so it makes sense for taxation for road costs to come as close as is reasonably achievable to depending on those numbers. Odometer is handy, because every vehicle should have one, tampering with one is already a specific criminal offense, and you can apply the charge in exactly the same way to an EV, a hydrogen car, a petrol or diesel car, a natural gas powered bus, or whatever else you have.
Which would, of course, be the same as annual charges based on odometer increases scaled to vehicle efficiency.
Road costs depend on axle weight and vehicle miles, so it makes sense for taxation for road costs to come as close as is reasonably achievable to depending on those numbers. Odometer is handy, because every vehicle should have one, tampering with one is already a specific criminal offense, and you can apply the charge in exactly the same way to an EV, a hydrogen car, a petrol or diesel car, a natural gas powered bus, or whatever else you have.
The more miles a vehicle does the more fuel it needs so you can just tax the fuel. Fuel would include the electric needed to charge the EV
Which would, of course, be the same as annual charges based on odometer increases scaled to vehicle efficiency.
Road costs depend on axle weight and vehicle miles, so it makes sense for taxation for road costs to come as close as is reasonably achievable to depending on those numbers. Odometer is handy, because every vehicle should have one, tampering with one is already a specific criminal offense, and you can apply the charge in exactly the same way to an EV, a hydrogen car, a petrol or diesel car, a natural gas powered bus, or whatever else you have.
The more miles a vehicle does the more fuel it needs so you can just tax the fuel. Fuel would include the electric needed to charge the EV
So the reason not to do this is that more efficient vehicles don't use less road. And, as @Alan Cresswell noted, there's no general way to know whether what he just plugged in to his house was a car, a vacuum cleaner, or a fridge freezer.
Which would, of course, be the same as annual charges based on odometer increases scaled to vehicle efficiency.
Road costs depend on axle weight and vehicle miles, so it makes sense for taxation for road costs to come as close as is reasonably achievable to depending on those numbers. Odometer is handy, because every vehicle should have one, tampering with one is already a specific criminal offense, and you can apply the charge in exactly the same way to an EV, a hydrogen car, a petrol or diesel car, a natural gas powered bus, or whatever else you have.
The more miles a vehicle does the more fuel it needs so you can just tax the fuel. Fuel would include the electric needed to charge the EV
How would you separate electricity used to charge an EV from other electricity? It's not as if you can dye it red like agricultural diesel.
Maybe the duty should be on tyres, then it would account for a combination of weight, aggressive driving, and mileage. Have a reclaim opportunity if a tyre fails before it wears down.
Maybe the duty should be on tyres, then it would account for a combination of weight, aggressive driving, and mileage. Have a reclaim opportunity if a tyre fails before it wears down.
At the margin, this encourages people to run their tyres a little longer and a little balder than they really should. Tyre inflation and wheel alignment also have a significant effect on wear.
Which would, of course, be the same as annual charges based on odometer increases scaled to vehicle efficiency.
Road costs depend on axle weight and vehicle miles, so it makes sense for taxation for road costs to come as close as is reasonably achievable to depending on those numbers. Odometer is handy, because every vehicle should have one, tampering with one is already a specific criminal offense, and you can apply the charge in exactly the same way to an EV, a hydrogen car, a petrol or diesel car, a natural gas powered bus, or whatever else you have.
The UK does not have taxation for road costs. It's commonly believed that VED is a "road tax" for this purpose but this hasn't been the case since the 1930s.
The UK does not have taxation for road costs. It's commonly believed that VED is a "road tax" for this purpose but this hasn't been the case since the 1930s.
It doesn't, but perhaps it should. (This doesn't require a hypothecated tax specifically for road maintenance necessarily.)
Currently, the UK charges 53p a litre fuel duty on petrol, plus VAT at 20%. As the UK shifts to electric vehicles, this needs to be replaced in the budget by something. Fuel Duty is £28 billion a year. It makes sense, in some sort of broad handwavy sense, to replace it by a tax that behaves somewhat similarly - in this case, scales by the amount of driving someone does. (Note that the income from fuel duty exceeds the spending on roads by a factor of 2 or so - if you wanted to hypothecate a road use tax, you might argue that you should set it at a level of about half the fuel duty, and make up the balance some other way.)
What do you mean by 'allow'? Is anyone currently preventing them from doing so?
You neglected to read the post I quoted, especially the bit that said, It would be good for a significant proportion of this extra income will be used to fund improved public transport, cycling infrastructure etc to give people an alternative to driving.
My use of the word 'allow' was somewhat sarcastic.
Which would, of course, be the same as annual charges based on odometer increases scaled to vehicle efficiency.
Road costs depend on axle weight and vehicle miles, so it makes sense for taxation for road costs to come as close as is reasonably achievable to depending on those numbers. Odometer is handy, because every vehicle should have one, tampering with one is already a specific criminal offense, and you can apply the charge in exactly the same way to an EV, a hydrogen car, a petrol or diesel car, a natural gas powered bus, or whatever else you have.
The more miles a vehicle does the more fuel it needs so you can just tax the fuel. Fuel would include the electric needed to charge the EV
How would you separate electricity used to charge an EV from other electricity? It's not as if you can dye it red like agricultural diesel.
It would not be be necessary to have a separate electricity charge.
What do you mean by 'allow'? Is anyone currently preventing them from doing so?
You neglected to read the post I quoted, especially the bit that said, It would be good for a significant proportion of this extra income will be used to fund improved public transport, cycling infrastructure etc to give people an alternative to driving.
My use of the word 'allow' was somewhat sarcastic.
Alright. I get it. Very funny.
All the petrol-heads and Clarksons round here get very agitated if anyone so much as imagines a cycle lane in their sleep.
That said, I know a lot of schemes intended to encourage people not to rely so much on cars that have been cack-handed or gone off at half-cock.
There are no simple solutions to any of this. But we should at least try.
Which would, of course, be the same as annual charges based on odometer increases scaled to vehicle efficiency.
Road costs depend on axle weight and vehicle miles, so it makes sense for taxation for road costs to come as close as is reasonably achievable to depending on those numbers. Odometer is handy, because every vehicle should have one, tampering with one is already a specific criminal offense, and you can apply the charge in exactly the same way to an EV, a hydrogen car, a petrol or diesel car, a natural gas powered bus, or whatever else you have.
The more miles a vehicle does the more fuel it needs so you can just tax the fuel. Fuel would include the electric needed to charge the EV
How would you separate electricity used to charge an EV from other electricity? It's not as if you can dye it red like agricultural diesel.
It would not be be necessary to have a separate electricity charge.
Are you saying all electricity would be subject to fuel duty?
Which would, of course, be the same as annual charges based on odometer increases scaled to vehicle efficiency.
Road costs depend on axle weight and vehicle miles, so it makes sense for taxation for road costs to come as close as is reasonably achievable to depending on those numbers. Odometer is handy, because every vehicle should have one, tampering with one is already a specific criminal offense, and you can apply the charge in exactly the same way to an EV, a hydrogen car, a petrol or diesel car, a natural gas powered bus, or whatever else you have.
The more miles a vehicle does the more fuel it needs so you can just tax the fuel. Fuel would include the electric needed to charge the EV
How would you separate electricity used to charge an EV from other electricity? It's not as if you can dye it red like agricultural diesel.
It would not be be necessary to have a separate electricity charge.
Are you saying all electricity would be subject to fuel duty?
No. I am saying that the more electric you use, the more you would have to pay.
Which would, of course, be the same as annual charges based on odometer increases scaled to vehicle efficiency.
Road costs depend on axle weight and vehicle miles, so it makes sense for taxation for road costs to come as close as is reasonably achievable to depending on those numbers. Odometer is handy, because every vehicle should have one, tampering with one is already a specific criminal offense, and you can apply the charge in exactly the same way to an EV, a hydrogen car, a petrol or diesel car, a natural gas powered bus, or whatever else you have.
The more miles a vehicle does the more fuel it needs so you can just tax the fuel. Fuel would include the electric needed to charge the EV
How would you separate electricity used to charge an EV from other electricity? It's not as if you can dye it red like agricultural diesel.
It would not be be necessary to have a separate electricity charge.
Are you saying all electricity would be subject to fuel duty?
No. I am saying that the more electric you use, the more you would have to pay.
But you said "...just tax the fuel. Fuel would include the electric needed to charge the EV". How would taxing the electricity used for EVs work in your suggestion?
Which would, of course, be the same as annual charges based on odometer increases scaled to vehicle efficiency.
Road costs depend on axle weight and vehicle miles, so it makes sense for taxation for road costs to come as close as is reasonably achievable to depending on those numbers. Odometer is handy, because every vehicle should have one, tampering with one is already a specific criminal offense, and you can apply the charge in exactly the same way to an EV, a hydrogen car, a petrol or diesel car, a natural gas powered bus, or whatever else you have.
The more miles a vehicle does the more fuel it needs so you can just tax the fuel. Fuel would include the electric needed to charge the EV
How would you separate electricity used to charge an EV from other electricity? It's not as if you can dye it red like agricultural diesel.
It would not be be necessary to have a separate electricity charge.
Are you saying all electricity would be subject to fuel duty?
No. I am saying that the more electric you use, the more you would have to pay.
But you said "...just tax the fuel. Fuel would include the electric needed to charge the EV". How would taxing the electricity used for EVs work in your suggestion?
People pay VAT on fuel charges. If you use Electric to charge your EV you will be paying more VAT in your bill.
Someone who drives a petrol or deisel car will pay less VAT on electric bills
Which would, of course, be the same as annual charges based on odometer increases scaled to vehicle efficiency.
Road costs depend on axle weight and vehicle miles, so it makes sense for taxation for road costs to come as close as is reasonably achievable to depending on those numbers. Odometer is handy, because every vehicle should have one, tampering with one is already a specific criminal offense, and you can apply the charge in exactly the same way to an EV, a hydrogen car, a petrol or diesel car, a natural gas powered bus, or whatever else you have.
The more miles a vehicle does the more fuel it needs so you can just tax the fuel. Fuel would include the electric needed to charge the EV
How would you separate electricity used to charge an EV from other electricity? It's not as if you can dye it red like agricultural diesel.
It would not be be necessary to have a separate electricity charge.
Are you saying all electricity would be subject to fuel duty?
No. I am saying that the more electric you use, the more you would have to pay.
But you said "...just tax the fuel. Fuel would include the electric needed to charge the EV". How would taxing the electricity used for EVs work in your suggestion?
People pay VAT on fuel charges. If you use Electric to charge your EV you will be paying more VAT in your bill.
Someone who drives a petrol or deisel car will pay less VAT on electric bills
Which would, of course, be the same as annual charges based on odometer increases scaled to vehicle efficiency.
Road costs depend on axle weight and vehicle miles, so it makes sense for taxation for road costs to come as close as is reasonably achievable to depending on those numbers. Odometer is handy, because every vehicle should have one, tampering with one is already a specific criminal offense, and you can apply the charge in exactly the same way to an EV, a hydrogen car, a petrol or diesel car, a natural gas powered bus, or whatever else you have.
The more miles a vehicle does the more fuel it needs so you can just tax the fuel. Fuel would include the electric needed to charge the EV
How would you separate electricity used to charge an EV from other electricity? It's not as if you can dye it red like agricultural diesel.
It would not be be necessary to have a separate electricity charge.
Are you saying all electricity would be subject to fuel duty?
No. I am saying that the more electric you use, the more you would have to pay.
But you said "...just tax the fuel. Fuel would include the electric needed to charge the EV". How would taxing the electricity used for EVs work in your suggestion?
People pay VAT on fuel charges. If you use Electric to charge your EV you will be paying more VAT in your bill.
Someone who drives a petrol or deisel car will pay less VAT on electric bills
The discussion was about how to recoup revenue lost from the switch to electric vehicles. Given that domestic electricity is charged at 5% VAT, public charging at 20%, and motor fuel duty at 52.95p/litre plus 20% VAT the status quo would result in a sharp fall in revenue as take up of EVs increases. Do you have a suggestion to address that shortfall?
Which would, of course, be the same as annual charges based on odometer increases scaled to vehicle efficiency.
Road costs depend on axle weight and vehicle miles, so it makes sense for taxation for road costs to come as close as is reasonably achievable to depending on those numbers. Odometer is handy, because every vehicle should have one, tampering with one is already a specific criminal offense, and you can apply the charge in exactly the same way to an EV, a hydrogen car, a petrol or diesel car, a natural gas powered bus, or whatever else you have.
The more miles a vehicle does the more fuel it needs so you can just tax the fuel. Fuel would include the electric needed to charge the EV
How would you separate electricity used to charge an EV from other electricity? It's not as if you can dye it red like agricultural diesel.
It would not be be necessary to have a separate electricity charge.
Are you saying all electricity would be subject to fuel duty?
No. I am saying that the more electric you use, the more you would have to pay.
But you said "...just tax the fuel. Fuel would include the electric needed to charge the EV". How would taxing the electricity used for EVs work in your suggestion?
People pay VAT on fuel charges. If you use Electric to charge your EV you will be paying more VAT in your bill.
Someone who drives a petrol or deisel car will pay less VAT on electric bills
The discussion was about how to recoup revenue lost from the switch to electric vehicles. Given that domestic electricity is charged at 5% VAT, public charging at 20%, and motor fuel duty at 52.95p/litre plus 20% VAT the status quo would result in a sharp fall in revenue as take up of EVs increases. Do you have a suggestion to address that shortfall?
Going to have to be road pricing, but somehow differentiated by geography so as not to penalise rural dwellers. As I know from bitter professional experience, trying to define a ‘rural area’ is fraught with difficulty, and even different parts of the UK government (never mind the devolved areas) can’t agree and use their own definitions.
My closest public transport, of any type at all, is a twice daily bus service from a stop in the next village (2.5 miles away down a steep hill).
So, *until* public transport is reconstituted to the sort of scale it existed in pre-Beeching UK, rural people will get nailed by per-mile charging simply because they’ll have very little option but to pay up. Or be forced to move to urban areas.
As an aside I totally support the need to transition from ICE, but there’s (in general -not on here) far too much airy handwaving and assuming everyone lives in an urban area. Most do, but that doesn’t mean sweeping changes can be brought in that ignore the needs of those that don’t.
Though, assuming one can define "rural" and "urban", differentiated charging still has issues. It's relatively simple to differentiate with where a car is registered, but that doesn't necessarily reflect where the car is driven. Also, for those who own two properties there may be a temptation to register their car at the rural address even if much of their driving is commuting from urban home to work (they may already have car registered at rural address if insurance is cheaper to do that). Nevertheless, charging by where a car is registered is probably fairest, and deal with gaming the system by second home owners by taxing second homes so heavily that people give them up (which is important for freeing up housing).
Where I live is kind of Semi Rural. There have been housing estates built up round the old town (we live in the old town) but it is still very near farms, stables and only has a smallish shopping area. We have buses every hour or two hours depending where you are going and a train every hour except Sundays when it is mixed. Either once an hour or once every two hours depending on the time. Lots of people use cars. Would we count as urban or rural?
Where I live is kind of Semi Rural. There have been housing estates built up round the old town (we live in the old town) but it is still very near farms, stables and only has a smallish shopping area. We have buses every hour or two hours depending where you are going and a train every hour except Sundays when it is mixed. Either once an hour or once every two hours depending on the time. Lots of people use cars. Would we count as urban or rural?
Sounds pretty urban to me, but then our only remaining bus services are primarily to take pupils to and from school.
Where I live is kind of Semi Rural. There have been housing estates built up round the old town (we live in the old town) but it is still very near farms, stables and only has a smallish shopping area. We have buses every hour or two hours depending where you are going and a train every hour except Sundays when it is mixed. Either once an hour or once every two hours depending on the time. Lots of people use cars. Would we count as urban or rural?
Sounds pretty urban to me, but then our only remaining bus services are primarily to take pupils to and from school.
This is the issue - one official definition used in the UK of a rural settlement (as opposed to urban) is if the population is sub 10,000….
So you’re lumping together as ‘rural’ everything from a town with a railway station, police station, leisure centre, potentially a nightclub… to a settlement of 2 isolated agricultural labourers cottages on an island.
Which would, of course, be the same as annual charges based on odometer increases scaled to vehicle efficiency.
Road costs depend on axle weight and vehicle miles, so it makes sense for taxation for road costs to come as close as is reasonably achievable to depending on those numbers. Odometer is handy, because every vehicle should have one, tampering with one is already a specific criminal offense, and you can apply the charge in exactly the same way to an EV, a hydrogen car, a petrol or diesel car, a natural gas powered bus, or whatever else you have.
The more miles a vehicle does the more fuel it needs so you can just tax the fuel. Fuel would include the electric needed to charge the EV
How would you separate electricity used to charge an EV from other electricity? It's not as if you can dye it red like agricultural diesel.
It would not be be necessary to have a separate electricity charge.
Are you saying all electricity would be subject to fuel duty?
No. I am saying that the more electric you use, the more you would have to pay.
But you said "...just tax the fuel. Fuel would include the electric needed to charge the EV". How would taxing the electricity used for EVs work in your suggestion?
People pay VAT on fuel charges. If you use Electric to charge your EV you will be paying more VAT in your bill.
Someone who drives a petrol or deisel car will pay less VAT on electric bills
Which would, of course, be the same as annual charges based on odometer increases scaled to vehicle efficiency.
Road costs depend on axle weight and vehicle miles, so it makes sense for taxation for road costs to come as close as is reasonably achievable to depending on those numbers. Odometer is handy, because every vehicle should have one, tampering with one is already a specific criminal offense, and you can apply the charge in exactly the same way to an EV, a hydrogen car, a petrol or diesel car, a natural gas powered bus, or whatever else you have.
The more miles a vehicle does the more fuel it needs so you can just tax the fuel. Fuel would include the electric needed to charge the EV
How would you separate electricity used to charge an EV from other electricity? It's not as if you can dye it red like agricultural diesel.
It would not be be necessary to have a separate electricity charge.
Are you saying all electricity would be subject to fuel duty?
No. I am saying that the more electric you use, the more you would have to pay.
But you said "...just tax the fuel. Fuel would include the electric needed to charge the EV". How would taxing the electricity used for EVs work in your suggestion?
People pay VAT on fuel charges. If you use Electric to charge your EV you will be paying more VAT in your bill.
Someone who drives a petrol or deisel car will pay less VAT on electric bills
The discussion was about how to recoup revenue lost from the switch to electric vehicles. Given that domestic electricity is charged at 5% VAT, public charging at 20%, and motor fuel duty at 52.95p/litre plus 20% VAT the status quo would result in a sharp fall in revenue as take up of EVs increases. Do you have a suggestion to address that shortfall?
I know where @Hugal lives - and no, that's not a threat, and I'd define it as a small urban hub within a semi-rural area.
The buses go east-west or west-east along the coast road but if you went north of that for a mile or two you wouldn't find any public transport whatsoever.
It's a semi-rural area which bleeds into suburbia and urban fringe at the eastern and western ends.
It would feel less semi-rural to someone who lived on one of the Scottish Islands but very rural to someone from inner-city London or Birmingham.
I live in a small town, about 30,000 inhabitants more if your count the villages that now more or less join on to it and the large housing estates on the outskirts. We're lucky enough to have two train stations and a bus service, which seems poor to me as a Londoner, but would probably feel good to @Hugal.
It feels pretty rural to me who grew up on the Kilburn High Road, specially as I have a farm at the end of my garden, even if I also have a Waitrose five minutes walk away.
I know the Mayor for the region has been making noises about taking public transport in house. Sounds like a good idea, at the moment public transport, specially buses, is far too fragmented and not actually always useful.
Going to have to be road pricing, but somehow differentiated by geography so as not to penalise rural dwellers. As I know from bitter professional experience, trying to define a ‘rural area’ is fraught with difficulty, and even different parts of the UK government (never mind the devolved areas) can’t agree and use their own definitions.
Rural drivers currently pay more in petrol tax, due to more driving. Paying more in distance charges isn't an extra penalty, it's the same penalty.
Although in general, I'm not convinced that providing cheap driving by policy for people who live in rural areas is a good idea - this seems to privilege people who choose to live in large homes in rural areas and commute long distances more than it privileges people who live in a small village and drive to a nearby town once a week to go to the supermarket.
Going to have to be road pricing, but somehow differentiated by geography so as not to penalise rural dwellers. As I know from bitter professional experience, trying to define a ‘rural area’ is fraught with difficulty, and even different parts of the UK government (never mind the devolved areas) can’t agree and use their own definitions.
Rural drivers currently pay more in petrol tax, due to more driving. Paying more in distance charges isn't an extra penalty, it's the same penalty.
Although in general, I'm not convinced that providing cheap driving by policy for people who live in rural areas is a good idea - this seems to privilege people who choose to live in large homes in rural areas and commute long distances more than it privileges people who live in a small village and drive to a nearby town once a week to go to the supermarket.
Thankfully everyone living in a rural area fits into one of those two criteria…
Also my entire point was that rural public transport needs to be revolutionised *first* for this not to disproportionately hit rural dwellers. Of every criteria.
Also my entire point was that rural public transport needs to be revolutionised *first* for this not to disproportionately hit rural dwellers. Of every criteria.
But your point is wrong. We're talking about replacing a portion of the petrol tax with a road use charge. To the extent that rural dwellers currently pay more fuel tax because they drive further, they will pay more road charge because they drive further. It's not a hit - it's a "keep things the same".
Also my entire point was that rural public transport needs to be revolutionised *first* for this not to disproportionately hit rural dwellers. Of every criteria.
But your point is wrong. We're talking about replacing a portion of the petrol tax with a road use charge. To the extent that rural dwellers currently pay more fuel tax because they drive further, they will pay more road charge because they drive further. It's not a hit - it's a "keep things the same".
However, it will shift the burden from people with fuel thirsty cars who currently pay more through fuel based tax. I'm not sure that's a good thing. We want to deter, not encourage, thirty vehicles.
I won't try to summerise it but here's what the Prof, himself said by tweet today:
October Budget 6: Thanks to Truss, bond market scare stories are back
The idea that if Reeves wanted to borrow an extra £30 billion, say, the markets would refuse to lend that to the UK government and precipitate a crisis is just ludicrous.
In his autobiography, Bill Clinton has various 'rules of politics.' I mention that here as in the two decades or so since I read it, I've found them to be consistently apposite to contemporary events. One such rule is that in order to have good governance you need both good policy and good politics.
I have very little complaint about policy choices made by Labour so far. (And I bet most of their detractors have no clue about what they have already done). However, the politics has not been up to scratch.
All this is a lead up to saying that Reeves has an incredibly difficult job. She must present a budget that is both good policy and good politics. The level of scrutiny and pressure on a Labour Chancellor is at least ten times that on a Conservative one.
However, the state of the nation is such that she must be very brave.
We shall see. However, so many of the critics of what they think she will do are wilfully naive of how difficult it actually is.
Also my entire point was that rural public transport needs to be revolutionised *first* for this not to disproportionately hit rural dwellers. Of every criteria.
But your point is wrong. We're talking about replacing a portion of the petrol tax with a road use charge. To the extent that rural dwellers currently pay more fuel tax because they drive further, they will pay more road charge because they drive further. It's not a hit - it's a "keep things the same".
However, it will shift the burden from people with fuel thirsty cars who currently pay more through fuel based tax. I'm not sure that's a good thing. We want to deter, not encourage, thirty vehicles.
Precisely, and also @Leorning Cniht seems to be suggesting a stand still/same as now approach, which I just don’t see happening.
I’m green enough to have started with an assumption (which I didn’t write down but only because it seems so mainstream that I thought it was baked in) that the future is going to have to be some form of carrot (don’t use your own vehicle because public transport is so good) and stick (we’re going to make it very expensive to use your vehicle).
Hence my point, for the third time, is that rural public transport is going to need sorting or all we’re going to get in the sticks is the, er, stick.
It never occurred to me that we were discussing a situation where the future is going to be the same as now but with the same money taken in a different mechanism. We need to reduce private vehicle ownership and usage.
Hence my point, for the third time, is that rural public transport is going to need sorting or all we’re going to get in the sticks is the, er, stick.
It makes sense to put lots of people in a large vehicle for journeys that lots of people want to do.
If you've got one or two people wanting to make a particular journey at a particular time, public transport doesn't really help you. I don't think it makes any sense at all for rural public transport to be adequate to meet all the needs of rural people, because the set of journeys you want to make are too diffuse.
In my mind, the "stick" that you want to wield is the one that makes it awkward to use personal vehicles in places where lots of people want to travel. Which means things like not having parking in city centers, so you just can't drive there in your car. Having bus lanes, so public transport isn't caught in congestion.
If you make driving expensive, you price out poor people. If you make driving awkward in places where there's a good alternative, you awkward out everyone.
Hence my point, for the third time, is that rural public transport is going to need sorting or all we’re going to get in the sticks is the, er, stick.
It makes sense to put lots of people in a large vehicle for journeys that lots of people want to do.
If you've got one or two people wanting to make a particular journey at a particular time, public transport doesn't really help you. I don't think it makes any sense at all for rural public transport to be adequate to meet all the needs of rural people, because the set of journeys you want to make are too diffuse.
In my mind, the "stick" that you want to wield is the one that makes it awkward to use personal vehicles in places where lots of people want to travel. Which means things like not having parking in city centers, so you just can't drive there in your car. Having bus lanes, so public transport isn't caught in congestion.
If you make driving expensive, you price out poor people. If you make driving awkward in places where there's a good alternative, you awkward out everyone.
Even then you have to watch out for ableism. Mrs Feet experiences a lot of pain from walking and tires rapidly. Even negotiating public transport to hospital appointments in Glasgow is too much and she has to fork out for taxis. Making driving awkward because you've decided the alternative is good needs to include robust exceptions for disabled people.
Public transport will probably never be a sole solution for everyone, regardless of whether they live in a city of middle of nowhere. But, properly organised public transport can be a solution for the majority of journeys currently made entirely by car, especially if that's in part "park and ride" (which can, of course, include parking a bike as well as a car).
It goes without saying that current public transport isn't properly organised. It needs to be frequent, covering a variety of routes connecting places regularly need to get to (schools, hospitals, shopping and entertainment areas etc) by routes that serve many places between them, connecting with other transport (without the bus arriving 2 minutes after a once per hour train), run for longer hours through the night (no buses after pubs close or for nurses ending a shift at 2am is stupid), and is affordable and reliable.
What you want is a cheap self-driving electric taxi that will come and get you, and adjust its route to pick up other people conveniently on the way.
In such a way as you don't have to share space with other passengers unless you both want to. Plenty of people, particularly but not exclusively women, have reason to fear getting into a vehicle with strangers without a driver or other identifiable person supervising and able to bear witness.
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Doublethink, Admin
[ETA added missing word.]
Yep the usual things.
I know they've said they won't be increasing income tax, but those of us on higher incomes can certainly be doing more to support public services.
An increase on fuel tax is not going to help those who cannot even walk to the nearest bus stop.
I had a friend in the West Midlands whose husband has a physical disability. She resigned her position as a Conservative Councillor and left the party after she turned up to a branch meeting to hear her fellow Tories scoffing about 'disabled people', dismissing the unemployed as feckless scroungers and taking the piss out of anyone and everyone less fortunate than themselves.
I'm fundamentally opposed to duty on EV charging, because it discriminates between people who have the ability to charge at home and those who need to purchase charging.
EVs need to pay their share of road costs; I'd suggest an annual charge dependent on the odometer increase since last year and the axle weight of the vehicle would be a reasonable way of charging for road use for all vehicles, in a way that doesn't discriminate arbitrarily.
Of course, low power chargers that just plug into the domestic mains supply would be just another couple of kW being run overnight, and would look no different to someone drinking a lot of tea (the power requirements of an electric kettle being similar). But, when I use my little charger it's not getting the cheaper rates that I could get if I was able to install a proper charger at home.
But, the difficulties of putting a duty onto EV charging equivalent to fuel duty is something that is part of "looking at". I don't know if all EVs do, but mine records all charging regardless of when and where (so, I can go into the computer and bring up how many kWh I've put in, compare that with home many miles I've driven and come up with 4.3miles/kWh or thereabouts as my average sine I bought the car), so in my case there's a computer log available to base that on, which could be read at annual service time. But, even without that an assumed 4.3miles/kWh and annual mileage will be pretty close (adjust for average mileage for other cars). Which would, of course, be the same as annual charges based on odometer increases scaled to vehicle efficiency.
Road costs depend on axle weight and vehicle miles, so it makes sense for taxation for road costs to come as close as is reasonably achievable to depending on those numbers. Odometer is handy, because every vehicle should have one, tampering with one is already a specific criminal offense, and you can apply the charge in exactly the same way to an EV, a hydrogen car, a petrol or diesel car, a natural gas powered bus, or whatever else you have.
So the reason not to do this is that more efficient vehicles don't use less road. And, as @Alan Cresswell noted, there's no general way to know whether what he just plugged in to his house was a car, a vacuum cleaner, or a fridge freezer.
How would you separate electricity used to charge an EV from other electricity? It's not as if you can dye it red like agricultural diesel.
Maybe the duty should be on tyres, then it would account for a combination of weight, aggressive driving, and mileage. Have a reclaim opportunity if a tyre fails before it wears down.
At the margin, this encourages people to run their tyres a little longer and a little balder than they really should. Tyre inflation and wheel alignment also have a significant effect on wear.
What do you mean by 'allow'? Is anyone currently preventing them from doing so?
The UK does not have taxation for road costs. It's commonly believed that VED is a "road tax" for this purpose but this hasn't been the case since the 1930s.
It doesn't, but perhaps it should. (This doesn't require a hypothecated tax specifically for road maintenance necessarily.)
Currently, the UK charges 53p a litre fuel duty on petrol, plus VAT at 20%. As the UK shifts to electric vehicles, this needs to be replaced in the budget by something. Fuel Duty is £28 billion a year. It makes sense, in some sort of broad handwavy sense, to replace it by a tax that behaves somewhat similarly - in this case, scales by the amount of driving someone does. (Note that the income from fuel duty exceeds the spending on roads by a factor of 2 or so - if you wanted to hypothecate a road use tax, you might argue that you should set it at a level of about half the fuel duty, and make up the balance some other way.)
You neglected to read the post I quoted, especially the bit that said, It would be good for a significant proportion of this extra income will be used to fund improved public transport, cycling infrastructure etc to give people an alternative to driving.
My use of the word 'allow' was somewhat sarcastic.
Alright. I get it. Very funny.
All the petrol-heads and Clarksons round here get very agitated if anyone so much as imagines a cycle lane in their sleep.
That said, I know a lot of schemes intended to encourage people not to rely so much on cars that have been cack-handed or gone off at half-cock.
There are no simple solutions to any of this. But we should at least try.
Are you saying all electricity would be subject to fuel duty?
Yes. By improving public transport.
No. I am saying that the more electric you use, the more you would have to pay.
But you said "...just tax the fuel. Fuel would include the electric needed to charge the EV". How would taxing the electricity used for EVs work in your suggestion?
People pay VAT on fuel charges. If you use Electric to charge your EV you will be paying more VAT in your bill.
Someone who drives a petrol or deisel car will pay less VAT on electric bills
So what you suggest for EVs already occurs?
The discussion was about how to recoup revenue lost from the switch to electric vehicles. Given that domestic electricity is charged at 5% VAT, public charging at 20%, and motor fuel duty at 52.95p/litre plus 20% VAT the status quo would result in a sharp fall in revenue as take up of EVs increases. Do you have a suggestion to address that shortfall?
Going to have to be road pricing, but somehow differentiated by geography so as not to penalise rural dwellers. As I know from bitter professional experience, trying to define a ‘rural area’ is fraught with difficulty, and even different parts of the UK government (never mind the devolved areas) can’t agree and use their own definitions.
My closest public transport, of any type at all, is a twice daily bus service from a stop in the next village (2.5 miles away down a steep hill).
So, *until* public transport is reconstituted to the sort of scale it existed in pre-Beeching UK, rural people will get nailed by per-mile charging simply because they’ll have very little option but to pay up. Or be forced to move to urban areas.
As an aside I totally support the need to transition from ICE, but there’s (in general -not on here) far too much airy handwaving and assuming everyone lives in an urban area. Most do, but that doesn’t mean sweeping changes can be brought in that ignore the needs of those that don’t.
Sounds pretty urban to me, but then our only remaining bus services are primarily to take pupils to and from school.
This is the issue - one official definition used in the UK of a rural settlement (as opposed to urban) is if the population is sub 10,000….
So you’re lumping together as ‘rural’ everything from a town with a railway station, police station, leisure centre, potentially a nightclub… to a settlement of 2 isolated agricultural labourers cottages on an island.
Only if you charge at home Yes I do
The buses go east-west or west-east along the coast road but if you went north of that for a mile or two you wouldn't find any public transport whatsoever.
It's a semi-rural area which bleeds into suburbia and urban fringe at the eastern and western ends.
It would feel less semi-rural to someone who lived on one of the Scottish Islands but very rural to someone from inner-city London or Birmingham.
It feels pretty rural to me who grew up on the Kilburn High Road, specially as I have a farm at the end of my garden, even if I also have a Waitrose five minutes walk away.
I know the Mayor for the region has been making noises about taking public transport in house. Sounds like a good idea, at the moment public transport, specially buses, is far too fragmented and not actually always useful.
Rural drivers currently pay more in petrol tax, due to more driving. Paying more in distance charges isn't an extra penalty, it's the same penalty.
Although in general, I'm not convinced that providing cheap driving by policy for people who live in rural areas is a good idea - this seems to privilege people who choose to live in large homes in rural areas and commute long distances more than it privileges people who live in a small village and drive to a nearby town once a week to go to the supermarket.
Thankfully everyone living in a rural area fits into one of those two criteria…
Also my entire point was that rural public transport needs to be revolutionised *first* for this not to disproportionately hit rural dwellers. Of every criteria.
We shall see.
But your point is wrong. We're talking about replacing a portion of the petrol tax with a road use charge. To the extent that rural dwellers currently pay more fuel tax because they drive further, they will pay more road charge because they drive further. It's not a hit - it's a "keep things the same".
However, it will shift the burden from people with fuel thirsty cars who currently pay more through fuel based tax. I'm not sure that's a good thing. We want to deter, not encourage, thirty vehicles.
I won't try to summerise it but here's what the Prof, himself said by tweet today:
In his autobiography, Bill Clinton has various 'rules of politics.' I mention that here as in the two decades or so since I read it, I've found them to be consistently apposite to contemporary events. One such rule is that in order to have good governance you need both good policy and good politics.
I have very little complaint about policy choices made by Labour so far. (And I bet most of their detractors have no clue about what they have already done). However, the politics has not been up to scratch.
All this is a lead up to saying that Reeves has an incredibly difficult job. She must present a budget that is both good policy and good politics. The level of scrutiny and pressure on a Labour Chancellor is at least ten times that on a Conservative one.
However, the state of the nation is such that she must be very brave.
We shall see. However, so many of the critics of what they think she will do are wilfully naive of how difficult it actually is.
AFZ
Precisely, and also @Leorning Cniht seems to be suggesting a stand still/same as now approach, which I just don’t see happening.
I’m green enough to have started with an assumption (which I didn’t write down but only because it seems so mainstream that I thought it was baked in) that the future is going to have to be some form of carrot (don’t use your own vehicle because public transport is so good) and stick (we’re going to make it very expensive to use your vehicle).
Hence my point, for the third time, is that rural public transport is going to need sorting or all we’re going to get in the sticks is the, er, stick.
It never occurred to me that we were discussing a situation where the future is going to be the same as now but with the same money taken in a different mechanism. We need to reduce private vehicle ownership and usage.
It makes sense to put lots of people in a large vehicle for journeys that lots of people want to do.
If you've got one or two people wanting to make a particular journey at a particular time, public transport doesn't really help you. I don't think it makes any sense at all for rural public transport to be adequate to meet all the needs of rural people, because the set of journeys you want to make are too diffuse.
In my mind, the "stick" that you want to wield is the one that makes it awkward to use personal vehicles in places where lots of people want to travel. Which means things like not having parking in city centers, so you just can't drive there in your car. Having bus lanes, so public transport isn't caught in congestion.
If you make driving expensive, you price out poor people. If you make driving awkward in places where there's a good alternative, you awkward out everyone.
Even then you have to watch out for ableism. Mrs Feet experiences a lot of pain from walking and tires rapidly. Even negotiating public transport to hospital appointments in Glasgow is too much and she has to fork out for taxis. Making driving awkward because you've decided the alternative is good needs to include robust exceptions for disabled people.
It goes without saying that current public transport isn't properly organised. It needs to be frequent, covering a variety of routes connecting places regularly need to get to (schools, hospitals, shopping and entertainment areas etc) by routes that serve many places between them, connecting with other transport (without the bus arriving 2 minutes after a once per hour train), run for longer hours through the night (no buses after pubs close or for nurses ending a shift at 2am is stupid), and is affordable and reliable.
In such a way as you don't have to share space with other passengers unless you both want to. Plenty of people, particularly but not exclusively women, have reason to fear getting into a vehicle with strangers without a driver or other identifiable person supervising and able to bear witness.