A potential pay per mile fee to replace road tax.

[GS250]

mods note - split from this thread

From the Mail so maybe to be taken with a pinch of salt... however it would seem Labour are planning further assault on the motorist with a 'pay per mile' proposal. On paper it's fairer as it apparently replaces road duty. We all know though, that ultimately these types of change tend to lead to higher costs for your average user.

Anyone know anything factual about this proposal?

 

[Gloster]

From the Mail so maybe to be taken with a pinch of salt... however it would seem Labour are planning further assault on the motorist with a 'pay per mile' proposal. On paper it's fairer as it apparently replaces road duty. We all know though, that ultimately these types of change tend to lead to higher costs for your average user.

Anyone know anything factual about this proposal?

I don’t buy the Mail or look at its website, but from a brief flick through a copy in the supermarket, it looks as though this is an idea that has been floated, possibly only an early draft. However, to the Mail that is official party policy eagerly endorsed by Keir Starmer as part of his vindictive attempt to destroy the middle-classes. Being that it looks as though the main elements of the Conservatives‘ election manifesto are going to be demonising refugees/immigrants/foreigners and destroying the environment/sucking up to petrolheads, it seems that the Mail is on board this gravy train.

 

[MotCO]

I don’t buy the Mail or look at its website, but from a brief flick through a copy in the supermarket, it looks as though this is an idea that has been floated, possibly only an early draft. However, to the Mail that is official party policy eagerly endorsed by Keir Starmer as part of his vindictive attempt to destroy the middle-classes. Being that it looks as though the main elements of the Conservatives‘ election manifesto are going to be demonising refugees/immigrants/foreigners and destroying the environment/sucking up to petrolheads, it seems that the Mail is on board this gravy train.

I wouldn't be at all surprised for a cost per mile tax to be introduced by either of the main parties at some stage in the future. If EVs start taking off in a big way such that fuel excise duty starts to get compromised, then the hole in the Treasury's forecasts have to be bridged by something.

 

[renegademaster]

I wouldn't be at all surprised for a cost per mile tax to be introduced by either of the main parties at some stage in the future. If EVs start taking off in a big way such that fuel excise duty starts to get compromised, then the hole in the Treasury's forecasts have to be bridged by something.

With the mess that London is having to deal with its south-eastern borough's residents chopping down all the ULEZ cameras, I don't see direct pay-per-mile being able to be done without the cost of implementation being more than it's actually worth. You'd need a camera on every other street. I suspect the hole will end up being filled either through the general treasury budget, or hiking up road tax or VAT on cars. Or mabye widespread motorway tolls like in France.

 

[GS250]

Conservatives‘ election manifesto are going to be demonising refugees/immigrants/foreigners and destroying the environment/sucking up to petrolheads, it seems that the Mail is on board this gravy train.

To be fair the 'petrolheads' you describe are in the vast majority ordinary citizens who are driving to:

A) Work or get to and from work.
B) visiting relatives
C) going to medical appointments

They aren't driving for the fun of it.

 

[75A]

The fun went out of driving decades ago for me

 

[Gloster]

To be fair the 'petrolheads' you describe are in the vast majority ordinary citizens who are driving to:

A) Work or get to and from work.
B) visiting relatives
C) going to medical appointments

They aren't driving for the fun of it.

They are also driving the world to destruction. That isn’t fun either.

 

[brad465]

If autonomous vehicles take off then neither fuel duty nor pay per mile will raise much revenue at all; I can see a collapse in vehicle ownership as many drivers no longer need to have a car sitting idle for 90%+ its life, a fleet of these vehicles that can be called upon like a taxi service will replace most car journeys, especially the shorter ones that a majority of such journeys are. You might be able to tax the fares charged through autonomous vehicle use, but I can't see it anywhere near matching current revenue streams. Personally I think such a situation will be good overall were it occur: better for the environment through reduced material consumption, and all those discriminated against due to being unable to drive will finally get equal opportunity for relevant jobs, etc.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

With the mess that London is having to deal with its south-eastern borough's residents chopping down all the ULEZ cameras, I don't see direct pay-per-mile being able to be done without the cost of implementation being more than it's actually worth. You'd need a camera on every other street. I suspect the hole will end up being filled either through the general treasury budget, or hiking up road tax or VAT on cars. Or mabye widespread motorway tolls like in France.

The obvious solution to that is to do away with cameras and use the positioning data that I believe most new cars will be automatically recording anyway. Doing that would be a political minefield of people complaining about 'big brother' etc. but it would be a very sensible way of implementing road charging - with an extra benefit of being able to automatically detect speeding too.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 27 Aug 2023 ==

They are also driving the world to destruction. That isn’t fun either.

Yep.

Is this a rare moment of you and I agreeing on something?

 

[renegademaster]

The obvious solution to that is to do away with cameras and use the positioning data that I believe most new cars will be automatically recording anyway. Doing that would be a political minefield of people complaining about 'big brother' etc. but it would be a very sensible way of implementing road charging - with an extra benefit of being able to automatically detect speeding too.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 27 Aug 2023 ==



Yep.

Is this a rare moment of you and I agreeing on something?

So old cars exempt?
Unless the EU does this too, i don't think UK government alone is going to have much chance of forcing manufacturers to send location to the UK government every minute, like when the home office (I think Liz Truss at the time) wanted messaging apps to put backdoors in the encryption and Big tech told her to **** off and the idea was quietly dropped. There's so many easier ways to extract revenue from the populace, i doubt any government will go through the hassle such a system will bring. Modern goverments, including the current , largely fund everything out of borrowing/money printing(a.k.a inflation) anyway.

 

[JamesT]

So old cars exempt?
Unless the EU does this too, i don't think UK government alone is going to have much chance of forcing manufacturers to send location to the UK government every minute, like when the home office (I think Liz Truss at the time) wanted messaging apps to put backdoors in the encryption and Big tech told her to **** off and the idea was quietly dropped. There's so many easier ways to extract revenue from the populace, i doubt any government will go through the hassle such a system will bring. Modern goverments, including the current , largely fund everything out of borrowing/money printing(a.k.a inflation) anyway.

Rather than a complicated system based on location, just have one based on annual mileage? Perhaps with some sort of banding to discourage more damaging vehicles (e.g. by weight).

 

[AM9]

Rather than a complicated system based on location, just have one based on annual mileage? Perhaps with some sort of banding to discourage more damaging vehicles (e.g. by weight).

That would have drivers in rural areas complaining because they drive more miles. Any charging system would need to discriminate between driving on a quiet road where there is no alternative transport and driving on a heavily congested road through a residential area, past schools etc., and where there are plenty of public transport alternatives.

 

[nw1]

So old cars exempt?
Unless the EU does this too, i don't think UK government alone is going to have much chance of forcing manufacturers to send location to the UK government every minute, like when the home office (I think Liz Truss at the time) wanted messaging apps to put backdoors in the encryption and Big tech told her to **** off and the idea was quietly dropped. There's so many easier ways to extract revenue from the populace, i doubt any government will go through the hassle such a system will bring. Modern goverments, including the current , largely fund everything out of borrowing/money printing(a.k.a inflation) anyway.

To me, sending your car's location to the government repeatedly has very obvious privacy concerns.

AFAIK this sort of thing would be covered by privacy laws, if a location is sent to a server users would have to be warned, and be given the option to opt-out.

 

[cb a1]

To me, sending your car's location to the government repeatedly has very obvious privacy concerns.

AFAIK this sort of thing would be covered by privacy laws, if a location is sent to a server users would have to be warned, and be given the option to opt-out.

All three major mobile phone networks sell anonymised location data to anyone willing to buy it.
I believe in the early days Vodafone gave an opt out option but I've never been given one.
My (limited) understanding is that privacy rules apply to individuals, not objects like phones or cars. The privacy risk is from disclosure where data about the object is combined with other data to identify an individual. For example, combining the location data with vehicle ownership.
Thus the location data needs to be protected, but of itself is not personal data. This is why ANPR can be used without needing vehicle owners to opt in or out. [For the avoidance of doubt IANAL and happy to be corrected on any of the above].

 

[edwin_m]

There would be some means of doing this that respected privacy. Could be secure box with location equipment and a contactless reader, which could receive data on the applicable charge rates and confirm back to the system that the account was in credit without identifying it. It would identify itself to the system only if no payment had been made.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

I think these privacy concerns are a bit of a red herring. If you are out in the street then you are in a public place - there is not and has never been privacy in public: Anyone who happens to be nearby can see you, can see what you're doing, can take photos that happen to include you (although it would be weird if they were taking photos of you without permission), etc. If you're carrying a phone, then your network (as well as either Google or Apple, depending on your phone's OS), probably already knows exactly where you are! Example: A few weeks ago, I was out walking and holding hands with a woman I'd recently started dating. A neighbour saw us and the news, including some information about the appearance/ethnicity of the woman I was dating rapidly spread around a couple of other neighbours. And to be clear, there's absolutely nothing wrong with that: I was in a public place, a neighbour told her friends something interesting she'd seen about me in that public place - the way people do. In short... if you want absolute privacy and want no-one to see where you are or what you're doing, then you'd better stay at home!

I think the question people who are opposed to the authorities having information about where your car is need to answer is: What freedom do you lose if the Government has that information, presumably with some legal safeguards on what the information can be used for? What legitimate activity can you do today that you would not be able to do if your car was reporting its location? Off the top of my head, I can't think of anything. And I can think of a lot of freedoms you'd gain.

 

[Yew]

I think these privacy concerns are a bit of a red herring. If you are out in the street then you are in a public place - there is not and has never been privacy in public: Anyone who happens to be nearby can see you, can see what you're doing, can take photos that happen to include you (although it would be weird if they were taking photos of you without permission), etc. If you're carrying a phone, then your network (as well as either Google or Apple, depending on your phone's OS), probably already knows exactly where you are!

There is a difference between people being able to see and overhear you, and willingly handing over positional data.

 

[renegademaster]

What legitimate activity can you do today that you would not be able to do if your car was reporting its location?

The government has data leaks all time, even if you'd believe the government wont do anything unscrupulous with it, it can easily get in the hands of someone who is less so.
Plus their is tons of legal but potentially embarrassing things you'd rather not have people know. Some less scrupulous government could get a DVLA employee to leak to the Sun the leader of the opposition goes to some weird fetish club to torpedo his electoral chances.

I am aware Google for a long time had stored my location, but thanks to new privacy laws, i have the right to opt out and did so, i rather not have this all go away.

 

[david1212]

I wouldn't be at all surprised for a cost per mile tax to be introduced by either of the main parties at some stage in the future. If EVs start taking off in a big way such that fuel excise duty starts to get compromised, then the hole in the Treasury's forecasts have to be bridged by something.

Unless there is a change in the ban on pure ICE from 2030 then hybrid from 2035 there is no if. For home / private EV charging there can never be full differentiation from general use to charge an equivalent of fuel excise duty, not least the energy companies will not want the administration. It could be done at dedicated public chargers but then unfair discrimination between home and public charging. There already is a 15% surcharge for public chargers because VAT is 20% rather than 5%.

Hence however implemented a EV replacement for fuel excise duty has to come as I have posted in the past on the EV threads.

Even if a significant move from ownership to car clubs the travelled mileage will fall far less. Public transport will not fill many of the gaps due routes covered and/or capacity not least as to the government the current network is a cost not an income while expansion will only increase that.

 

[renegademaster]

I don't understand the argument that the government HAS to fill the gap from fuel duty from drivers, the national road budget can be paid from VED alone, which is getting rejiggered to charge electric cars . As for the local budgets , that is for the council politicians to argue about how to fund that, they don't see any fuel duty or VED money anyway

 

[david1212]

I don't understand the argument that the government HAS to fill the gap from fuel duty from drivers, the national road budget can be paid from VED alone, which is getting rejiggered to charge electric cars . As for the local budgets , that is for the council politicians to argue about how to fund that, they don't see any fuel duty or VED money anyway

VED is a fixed fee. Fuel duty is a fee per litre so more paid both if more miles are travelled and the vehicle uses more fuel per mile. The latter encompasses the basic economy of the vehicle, driving speed, driving on congested roads and driving style.

If anything should be scrapped IMO it is VED but right now the state needs every penny hence VED being increased for EV's. The combined income from VED and fuel duty is not just for the national road budget but other services too. If fuel duty was simply effectively ended with the sale of petrol and diesel how do you propose the state collects the same income?

 

[renegademaster]

VED is a fixed fee. Fuel duty is a fee per litre so more paid both if more miles are travelled and the vehicle uses more fuel per mile. The latter encompasses the basic economy of the vehicle, driving speed, driving on congested roads and driving style.

If anything should be scrapped IMO it is VED but right now the state needs every penny hence VED being increased for EV's. The combined income from VED and fuel duty is not just for the national road budget but other services too. If fuel duty was simply effectively ended with the sale of petrol and diesel how do you propose the state collects the same income?

Go kick up VAT 1% on something or invent a new duty, I don't see why it is obligatory it comes from drivers

 

[stuu]

I don't understand the argument that the government HAS to fill the gap from fuel duty from drivers, the national road budget can be paid from VED alone, which is getting rejiggered to charge electric cars . As for the local budgets , that is for the council politicians to argue about how to fund that, they don't see any fuel duty or VED money anyway

Tax from vehicles is not just used for roads, it goes into general taxation and helps pay for everything

 

[DynamicSpirit]

Go kick up VAT 1% on something or invent a new duty, I don't see why it is obligatory it comes from drivers

Because drivers are the ones causing all the pollution, congestion, noise, ill health, etc. that results from cars. Why should everyone else pay for the harm that motorists cause?

 

[edwin_m]

Tax from vehicles is not just used for roads, it goes into general taxation and helps pay for everything

However, reducing vehicle taxation and increasing other taxes to compensate would encourage people to drive more. Even if they are all EVs, there are still the costs associated with congestion and accidents, and road maintenance will increase if there are more and heavier vehicles. Environmental damage will continue, domestically from as tyre pollution and globally from extraction of lithium, cobalt and other minerals.

I've just agreed with @DynamicSpirit!

 

[PTR 444]

That would have drivers in rural areas complaining because they drive more miles. Any charging system would need to discriminate between driving on a quiet road where there is no alternative transport and driving on a heavily congested road through a residential area, past schools etc., and where there are plenty of public transport alternatives.

This is IMO the main problem with a basic per mile charge. All it will do is encourage drivers to take the absolute shortest route between destinations despite being less suitable for heavy traffic than a longer alternative. A more sophisticated road pricing system that charges separate rates for different classes of road will be more costly an do require more tech, but goes a long way towards solving these issues.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

The government has data leaks all time, even if you'd believe the government wont do anything unscrupulous with it, it can easily get in the hands of someone who is less so.
Plus their is tons of legal but potentially embarrassing things you'd rather not have people know. Some less scrupulous government could get a DVLA employee to leak to the Sun the leader of the opposition goes to some weird fetish club to torpedo his electoral chances.

1. If someone really wanted to do something like that that, they could in principle already do so: Just have someone follow the leader of the opposition's car to see where he/she goes. Or alternatively possibly get/bribe an employee of the company that manages the car's existing tracking/satnav data to leak that data.

2. Think of the benefits you'd get from the authorities having access to the data. You could charge motorists to deter driving and therefore cut congestion and pollution in the cities where it's an issue while not charging as much for people who drive in the countryside where there's no alternative. You could pretty much end the offence of speeding (since you could always detect it), which would save countless lives and make the roads safer for everyone. You could also make it much easier to solve vehicle-based crime - to the extent that you could probably end fly-tipping as well as motorcycle-based thefts - so countless more people would no longer be victims of crime. Would you give all that up just because of the small possibility that some dishonest people might leak some data and use it to embarrass public figures?

 

[Bletchleyite]

mods note - split from this thread

From the Mail so maybe to be taken with a pinch of salt... however it would seem Labour are planning further assault on the motorist with a 'pay per mile' proposal. On paper it's fairer as it apparently replaces road duty. We all know though, that ultimately these types of change tend to lead to higher costs for your average user.

It can't not happen, whatever the Government. The country can't lose the fuel tax revenue when everyone switches to EVs, unless people want significantly increased VAT or income tax. It is inevitable.

The only question is exactly how it's implemented, be that a flat per mile or based on time and/or location.

 

[PTR 444]

It can't not happen, whatever the Government. The country can't lose the fuel tax revenue when everyone switches to EVs, unless people want significantly increased VAT or income tax. It is inevitable.

The only question is exactly how it's implemented, be that a flat per mile or based on time and/or location.

It would have to be a flat rate or location based. Time based will only encourage reckless driving behaviour such as speeding, tailgating and jumping red lights.

 

[deltic]

The government has long been looking at a pay as you drive system. The loss of fuel duties is equivalent to around 6p increase in income taxes. There are two possible options. One is a simple mileage based scheme, that a number of US states are looking at. The problem with that is how do you know if those miles are driven on public highways or in another country - a major issue for Northern Ireland. The second is a GPS based system similar to pay as you drive insurance policies. This would allow you to do clever things like linking charges to routes, time of day, level of congestion etc. The problem is the cost of billing and collecting the charge. Fuel duty is incredibly cheap to collect and difficult to avoid. GPS would possibly cost 10-15% of the revenue collected and subject to massive potential avoidance.