Constructive/Positive Response from FairFuelUK to the Transport Select Committee’s call for evidence regarding the 2030 new petrol and diesel vehicles ban and replacing Fuel Duty with a road taxation charging formula.
This report shows there is a better way to lower vehicle emissions than using ineffective ‘Pay to Pollute’ policies and cliff edge vehicle sales bans. Doing nothing is therefore the worst, and most counter-productive, option of all.
The current clean air agenda harms the poor, the economy, and aspects of the environment all at once. No responsible administration should tolerate or allow that, so we commend the recommendations listed here for the Government’s consideration and implementation.
FairFuelUK fights for fairer taxation & treatment for UK motorists, van drivers, hauliers & motor-bikers. We are a public affairs team with no shareholders to satisfy, just an award-winning campaign representing the real concerns of hard-working motorists, families, small businesses, commercial drivers and hauliers across the UK.
Decades of fiscal exploitation by successive Governments with little in return, warrants the need for FairFuelUK. FairFuelUK is managed by the Campaign's Founder Howard Cox.
Campaign funding is through support from key founding backers the FTA, RHA and regular donations from supporters. Previous backers have included the RAC, Association of Pallet Networks, UKLPG and others. Over 150 MPs from all Parties except the Greens, since 2011 have supporters FairFuelUK
Since 2011 FairFuelUK has saved drivers over £110bn in planned tax hikes in duty and VAT through constructive and objective campaigning. Now the immediate focus is on stopping those unnecessary tax hikes based on a good intentioned but flawed 'green' agenda. These include new taxes and bans on drivers entering our major cities and potentially adding more costs on diesel drivers by the Treasury. These are new taxes that will not improve air quality, but simply hit consumers and the economy. There are ways to improve air quality without hitting consumers pockets. Please Read On.
Current FairFuelUK Campaign Issues also include: PumpWatch and fuel price transparency - Effective ways to lower emissions but not through tax hikes - Stop the perennial demonisation of van drivers, hauliers and motorists - More investment in UK roads similar to the level of HS2 spend - Establish a long term Government strategic roads transport plan - Halt unnecessary cash generating congestion zones and ULEZ expansion - VED and its future - Influence fairer future road user taxation plans and road funding with fuel duty revenue predicted to decline - Help role out new vehicle technology in a way that does not hit drivers in the pocket and to prevent cliff edge targe bans on diesel and petrol vehicles - Scrap hospital parking charges – Plus other related motoring costs and anti-driver issues.
Cleaning our air is an absolute priority but it will not happen through aimless virtue signalling by politicians. Government and local councils need to apply evidence-based science to the sources and causes of pollution to clean up our urban air.
The UK is woefully underprepared for vehicle electrification, is broadly ignoring marine, aviation, industrial and domestic combustion and needs to really incentivise consumers and industry to change their behaviours. The UK needs a consistent and well-crafted national air quality strategy that’s supported by world-class scientific research.
For over 100 years the challenge of significantly improving the combustion of hydrocarbon-based fuels such as petrol, diesel, heavy fuel oil and coal has stymied scientists worldwide.
Unfortunately, the opportunity to improve fuel combustion characteristics (and therefore engine efficiency) has spawned a worldwide panorama of ‘fuel enhancing’ products, most of which are ineffective. This has created the idea that nothing works; that all of these products are “snake oil.
That perception is about to change with new fuel catalysts now available that really do substantially lower vehicle emissions and improve fuel economy. So why is the Government ignoring them? They are here now, successfully used in other countries, but the UK remains myopic to their implementation.
In 2018 and repeated in 2019, the award-winning Public Affairs Campaign Group, FairFuelUK conducted the biggest survey in the recent history of transport. 71,098 responded. And what the drivers said is an aide-mémoire for the Government.
90% regard their vehicle as critical to their daily lives with 67% saying they have categorically no choice but to use it every day. Those on significantly below average incomes, less than £20,000 p.a., say they have no choice but to spend up to a quarter of their hard-earned cash on petrol and diesel. The emphasis here is ‘we have no choice!’
The persistent demonisation of the UK’s motorists, bikers and truckers continues to be flawed and ill-informed. Politicians across all parties must recognise the way their driver constituents are unfairly and repeatedly exploited by environmental emotive spin – leaving road users being ill-treated as pariahs and used as pure cash cows.
FairFuelUK, with its 1.7m supporters has repeatedly asked the Government to use alternative, proven and practical solutions that don’t hit motorists and hauliers in the pocket. They continue to ignore this common sense and popular apolitical approach. WHY is that?
Boris Johnson when interviewed by FairFuelUK during the EU Referendum in 2016, he said that he is in no doubt that leaving the EU will assist UK motorists, ‘white van man’ and our vital haulage industry.
The cost of motoring, better emissions control and improved road transport infrastructure are seen by Mr Johnson as key benefits of Brexit, along with the considerable advantage that we would control VAT levels on the already highly taxed prices at the pumps. The new PM said: ‘This is something that Brussels has stopped us doing’.
His word are a hollow vision now, based on the Government’s unexpected anti-driver policies rolled out since winning a landslide general election.
Boris Johnson pre-EU Referendum interview in 2016 with FairFuelUK - is available at: https://youtu.be/LVBQJvFuETs
Despite the welcome fuel duty freeze in the last 10yrs by Conservative administrations, the UK still has the highest taxed drivers in the world. Yet those emissions free heavier Electric Vehicles are free to roam our highways without paying any tax.
Motorists, businesses and hauliers feel chronically demonised and angry they’ve become the principal and easy targets for all the problems associated with urban air quality.
Much has been made of the London Mayor’s Ultra Low Emissions Zone (ULEZ), as a way forward. However, the new tax is seen by many as unscientific and unjust.
Essentially, ULEZ represents a regressive ‘pay to pollute’ methodology, with an unfairly large effect on the least wealthy, and no effect on those who can afford to pay the ULEZ tax and carry on using their vehicles.
Shaun Bailey, the Tory London mayoral candidate for 2020, said: “London’s air quality needs to improve, but Mr Khan’s rush to ULEZ over the complaints of small businesses and hard-pressed motorists makes it look like a cash grab to cover for his awful mismanagement of the TfL budget.”
The Mayor of London has, through his anti-car policies, unilaterally devalued the UK’s diesel fleet by £35billion. He has made millions of vehicles virtually unsaleable. Source CEBR. And the Government with their draconian 2030 ban will make selling a fossil fuelled vehicle nigh impossible.
Many vehicles are being unfairly targeted and penalised too. New big-engine high polluters are not being subject to this modified toxic charge, whilst a small older fuel-efficient motorbike such as a 90cc Honda is subject to a punitive payment. How can that be judged as fair?
Mr Khan has also chosen to dismiss the low-cost existing approaches, some of which are described in this report. These have been proven to improve air quality considerably more effectively than his current assault on older vehicles, which only serves to tax low-income drivers, families, and small businesses. Sadly, other local authorities are planning to follow London’s lead without investigating alternative solutions that are proven to reduce emissions immediately.
And that is where FairFuelUK with the APPG can help, working closely with Government to achieve the goal of reducing harmful emissions, at the same time improving fuel consumption for all vehicles. That alone will reduce CO2 emissions and other gases and particulate matter.
Wherever anyone stands on climate change and local pollution, there are effective proven products available now, which improve things instantly - and by instantly we don’t mean in months or weeks, but in seconds.
The Select Committee must quash the emotion and focus on proven scientific rational facts.
The environmental campaigners are backed by millions of pounds of funding. UK’s motorists rely on non-profit voluntary poorly financed groups such as FairFuelUK and the Alliance of British Drivers.
In addition, media outlets lead by the BBC, present the diesel and petrol story with vitriolic bias with no chance to reply. Whereas if Greta Thunberg or David Attenborough are championing their well financed positions, they drop everything to give them airtime.
The biggest deception of all: In 2015, the European Environment Agency report on Air Quality in Europe said that 72,000 premature deaths were attributable to Particulate Matter (PMs) and NOx exposure in 2012 across 40 European countries mainly because of exposure to diesel emissions.
The EU called these figures ‘A public health emergency’. If the EEA is right, we should be seeing this massive death toll in our hospitals. This huge loss of life should be visible to everybody and we should
be hearing about the extra strain put on the doctors, nurses and health services across Europe because of the thousands of these emission-related fatalities. But we’re not.
And that’s why FairFuelUK and the Fair Fuel APPG wanted to look at those figures a little more closely. Is it right that 37 million UK drivers should be subjected to punitive measures and unchecked media demonisation based on flawed data?
The key word here is ‘premature.’ A premature death is defined as one that ‘occurs before a person reaches an expected age. This expected age is typically the age of standard life expectancy for a country or gender.’ This means that every death before the standard life expectancy is a premature death whether it happens 20 years or two days before that life expectancy. By definition, many humans die prematurely for a wide variety of reasons.
All doctors and scientists realise that this premature death number has only a limited meaning, so they’ve given us another more accurate value and its YLL – or ‘Years of Life Lost’.
Years of Life Lost is defined as ‘The years or potential life lost owing to premature death and considers the age at which deaths occur giving greater weight to deaths at a younger age and lower weight to deaths at an older age.’ YLL therefore gives us a more nuanced approach versus relying on the number of premature deaths alone. In the EEA report they give us the YLL number for Europe as 800,000 years of life lost. That’s a terrifying figure!
But this number covers all of Europe - which is roughly 500 million people - and the EEA breaks this down to the number of Years of Life Lost per capita as 160 YLL/100,000. That means 100,000 people together lose 160 years of life. For each person this works out as 0.0016 years or a more understandable 0.584 days - if an average life expectancy is 80 years or 29,200 days.
The EEA says that if the whole of Europe meets the EU proposed NOx limits of 40mg/m3 everywhere, we’d improve YLL by 205,000 across 500 million people or roughly - 3.5 hours.
That’s just 3.5hrs in a lifetime!
The 40,000-mortality figure that’s now widely reported, broadly unquestioned, across the media is because of the use of that word ‘premature.’ To form policy based on such a febrile and clearly unproven estimate, with no real evidence of any deaths from NOx pollution, is both irresponsible and scientifically unfounded. It will cost us trillions of Pounds in transport policy and legislation changes, even if the estimates were valid, this would improve our life expectancy by only a trivial amount of time.
An additional consideration is this. The estimates are exactly that – estimates. In the real world it is clinically impossible to measure anything so marginal that it affects one’s life expectancy by hours. The reason this has not yet been challenged is because few people and organisations have dared to challenge the environmental policy monolith for fear of being accused of not caring about human health and premature death.
Every single diesel and petrol driver wants to breathe clean air. It is not sole the domain of the environmental activists.
The death figures are bogus in that nobody could credibly claim there is any methodology to make the sorts of statements which have been made about such a miniscule drop in life expectancy.
The Motorcycle Action Group (MAG) conducted some statistical research into live expectancy and emissions in the UK. They discovered that some of the most highly polluted boroughs in Central London and the UK have a longer life expectancy than some of the localities (in Scotland and Northern Ireland) with the UK’s cleanest air. Ironically, therefore, it is possible to show a correlation whereby the more polluted the local air, the longer you’ll live. What it really shows is that the effect of air pollution is literally un-measurable as a health factor.
As such, while reducing pollution is desirable for many reasons, the unmitigated attack on road users is not validly based on any health data.
Martin Hetzel, Medical Director of the Red Cross Hospital, Stuttgart – Germany said: “There is no such thing as a fine particulate disease of the lung or heart, and you don’t come across such a thing as nitrogen dioxide disease of lung or heart in hospital. They don’t exist. Fine particulate matter or NO2 hasn’t caused a single death. These are abstract mathematical models.”
“It’s simply not plausible that such small concentrations of NO2 and fine particulate matter would cause the harm and death that are being publicized at the moment.”
The Kloster Grafshaft Hospital, a former Benedictine Monastery used for fresh air recuperation after WWII, specialises in respiratory care. For years Dieter Kohler, a former president of the Respiratory Society, was Medical Director there.
He is also sceptical about the German Environmental Agency’s data. He said: ‘They compared 2 groups –rural and city dwellers with respect to NO2, and they pinpoint a small difference in life expectancy.
The people in the country live a bit longer but that might be because they exercise a bit more, drink less alcohol and smoke less, or a range of other factors.
Attributing the difference to nitrogen dioxide or fine particulate matter isn’t scientific.
‘They take a statistical correlation and turn it into a causal connection without proof. On the contrary it’s extremely easy to refute that connection’.
‘You would need to conduct tests with people exposed to high quantities of NO2 and fine particulates over many years to get more precise findings. That’s impossible for ethical reasons,’ but Kohler points out people are taking part in a kind of voluntary experiment of a similar nature. Jurgen Resch from the German Environmental Agency, GEA, wants the laws on air pollution to be tightened up. ‘this limit is actually far too lax. 800,000 people get sick each year because of NO2‘, according to GEA.
But Martin Hetzel responded: ‘that’s populism. Can’t be taken seriously, it is populism driven by ideology. Of course, you might have the idea, and that’s the ideology behind all of this of banishing cars from cities. You can do that, but you shouldn’t engineer that by setting legal limits without any basis in science.’
‘Otherwise the first diesel emissions scandal will be followed by a 2nd diesel scandal. If the existing legal requirements aren’t based on reliable scientific evidence, then it’s a mistake. And mistakes are always rectified at some point’.
There is no downside in aspiring to reduce emissions, but we need to apply real numbers and real science to this debate. Badly phrased headline figures from official but scientifically unfounded reports are persistently used to terrify millions of consumers, especially parents. If we can’t even accurately understand the numbers what hope do we have, to really improve our air quality in a meaningful and proportionate way?
Bad science won’t help us clean our air!
Since there is no demonstrable relationship between local air quality and life expectancy either, which is at its highest in some highly polluted areas of Britain such as central London, and below average in many less polluted localities such as North West Scotland and Northern Ireland, anti-car rhetoric is dogmatic rather than scientifically based.
Air quality, as affected by traffic, is irrelevant to health versus other factors such as wealth, access to health provision and diet.
The irony now becomes even more stark. According to the University of Surrey, Particulate Matter (PMs) is found at concentrations 600% higher in the London Underground than when travelling along a road. In other reports this figure is stated as much as 2900% higher. If PMs really are bad for us, the authorities are harming motorists’ health further by trying to force them into the underground. If health claims about PMs are correct, those authorities could be prosecuted for forcing the riding and driving public into a far less healthy environment.
Why isn’t the Mayor of London installing air conditioning filtration systems in the Tube to reduce particulate matter? The answer is simple: It’s costlt and does not generate any income for his debt-ridden administration. Whereas drivers do.
Choosing instead, ineffective punitive tax hikes and financial charges towards millions of drivers. AND yet no restriction of the most polluting vehicles entering our cities.
Detailed investigation is showing that punitive tax charges on older vehicles entering London is not improving air quality. These charges impact on lower income drivers and businesses.
When a new 4x4 is not charged to enter the ULEZ, but a small older moped that emits lower emissions has to pay the tax, we must question the Mayor of London’s motives and demand proof of the tax’s efficacy in lowering emissions.
If we really want a country with the cleanest possible air quality, we need unambiguous facts that have been thoroughly researched. They need to be delivered promptly and with no political ambition involved.
We simply won’t make the real difference to London’s or any UK urban’s air unless we look at this considerable range of other polluters and stop shifting all responsibility onto passenger cars. It’s far too lazy, predictable and wrong.
Nowhere are we seeing any bold scientific strategy to address these other significant sources of ultra-fine particles and oxides of nitrogen. That is why the APPG has initiated this report into better ways to improve air quality in our city.
And here’s something else FairFuelUK doesn’t understand: if TfL says that passenger car use in London has declined 10% since 2001, how can cars alone be the cause of so much increased pollution? It simply doesn’t add up.
If we don’t apply some proper world-class science to the air quality debate, London’s faulted Transport Strategy may be repeated by even more councils in other cities across the UK and be driven forward by reactive legislation from an ill-informed central government.
And if this continues, we’ll have lost an historic opportunity to really improve our air and the 37 million drivers in the UK will never take the social vision of improving air quality seriously again.
And that’s why FairFuelUK and the Fair Fuel APPG are calling for an Air Quality Working Party, free from vested interests, to scientifically determine where the greatest levels of particulate and nitrogen dioxide pollutants really come from and how to reduce them in the short to medium term.
We owe it to London; we owe it to the rest of the country. But most of all we owe it to the future of the next generation to get this right instead of guessing it wrong.
If the ULEZ tax is failing to deliver the results intended, are there alternatives that work? Yes, there are several.
FairFuelUK has investigated over 10 different ways to lower vehicle emissions, through face-to-face interviews with suppliers and industry experts.
The current urban charges increase climate change emissions because richer running engines produce less NOx but more CO2. ‘Pay to Pollute’ policies cannot match the results the following propositions deliver in reducing vehicle emissions and improving fuel economy. The simply don’t come close.
Choosing to allow the most polluting vehicles to enter our cities and make drivers pay for that privilege is blatantly unfair and, as we have seen from published figures, this wholly money raising approach is ineffective too.
This product, synthesised in Yorkshire, has convinced us, it should be seriously considered as a leading replacement to punitive clean air zone taxation. It has proven to be a highly effective way to improve air quality at no cost to the user. It:
It is suitable for use in diesel, petrol, biodiesel, and blended petrol/ethanol fuels. It can also be added to fuels such as wood chips to improve BTU values and reduce emissions. It demonstrably improves fuel economy as using it in countless tests it improves the efficiency of fuel combustion. It Improves profitability and reduces environmental impact.
In 2009 Fuel Catalyst B was approved by the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality and the United States EPA as one of the solutions to meet that gold standard Since that date, it has fast become the most popular choice for fuel distributors in Texas due to its reasonable price and low treat rate.
Since Fuel Catalyst B was first introduced into the bulk fuels market, in the US in 2006, Fuel Catalyst B has reduced the emissions of NOx by over 2 million lbs of NOx.
Over 8 billion gallons of diesel have been treated with this Catalyst. Over 40% of the market (and growing) now uses the product to meet government standards. The State of Texas has been compliant with EPA air quality standards since implementing its air pollution program with staggering results with 26% reduction of ozone, 67% reduction of NOx and 56% reduction of SO2.
The government should use an effective Fuel Catalyst, such as Fuel Catalyst A or B because:
The immediate reductions to the Governments vehicle fleet fuel costs are compelling. We have asked the Treasury as to how much the Government spends on fuel, from diesel to petrol, from a Challenger tank to a paramedic’s ambulance. The savings will certainly be at least 10%.
The downstream oil sector is a vital part of the UK's energy landscape.
With refineries, terminals, pipelines and fuel filling stations located across all the UK's nations and regions, the oil industry is essential to maintaining national energy security, supporting high-skilled jobs and the economy and providing the solutions to the UK's long-term energy transition.
But, the industry plays lip service to doing something about improving air quality. They also charge premium amounts for cleaner fuel products that purport to lowering emissions. And a large proportion of the lower quality petroleum higher polluting products are shipped to third world states at cheap prices.
The oil industry could be asked - maybe via legislation - to include a fuel catalyst like Fuel Catalyst A/B in all bulk deliveries to forecourts.
As we have discovered, it is already a legal requirement for a similar catalyst (Fuel Catalyst B) to be included in such bulk forecourt deliveries in Texas, USA. If this were adopted here in the UK, the impact on air quality would be immediate and positive.
While the health impact of emissions remains unproven, these catalysts also reduce fuel consumption in Britain, potentially by billions of litres a year. There is absolutely no reason to reject such an opportunity.
There are 6 major refineries that refine crude oil and blend biomass into petroleum products. 41 coastal and 20 inland terminals are used to import, export, and store refined fuel and receive fuel from UK refineries via pipeline, rail and sea. 3,000 miles of pipeline transports a range of fuels around the country and pipes jet fuel direct to some of UK’s main airports. 8,500 filling stations are supplied from terminals by a fleet of road tankers
The introduction of consumption reducing and emissions improving additives is imperative to anyone and any Government that is serious about reducing pollution and the rate at which we use the finite resource of oil.
The market for road fuels in the UK amounts to about 36.7 million tonnes per year, equivalent to just under 46 billion litres. Demand for road transport fuels equates to 44 million litres of petrol and a little over 81 million litres of diesel per day.
By directing the oil industry to add a fuel catalyst or any similar proven product - the Government would reduce the UK’s vehicle fuel consumption, by a minimum of 5% or at least 2.2 billion litres per year.
The benefit to the economy, improved air quality through vehicle emissions reduction using fuel catalysts would be immediate and measurable. With a resultant £2 billion+ being put back into the economy, the impact on inflation, jobs, investment and growth taxes would be comparatively easy to track.
Although, fuel catalysts may not solve the environmental challenges of the world forever, they answer part of those questions for now and will continue to, for decades to come. They are also a much fairer solution to millions of drivers and businesses who rely on vehicles in their daily lives.
Shockingly, environmental campaigners, like the very well financed celebrity backed Client Earth, seem to actively refuse to engage with these effective ways to improve air quality, favouring punishing the Government, drivers and outright bans, and ignoring the fact that these catalysts provide an immediate reduction in improving air quality.
Their approaches are hugely unpopular with the majority of voters, but their mantra is still relentlessly pushed out vigorously in ill-informed media headlines. Our research shows that UK drivers welcome these additives to improve air quality, but do not welcome ineffective cash grabbing local authority taxes. In FairFuelUK 2019 poll of over 25,000 road users: 9 out of 10 respondents said they want safe, certified fuel additives introduced into all bulk fuels at source to be dispensed from UK pumps. Such additives would reduce emissions and improve fuel consumption in a way that ULEZ demonstrably has not.
There is a 3rd choice: Do nothing and allow The Mayor of London and others to lead the charge towards emissions taxes which are based on virtue signalling and not science, and which bizarrely increase emissions locally and globally.
This report has shown there is a better way to lower vehicle emissions than using ineffective ‘Pay to Pollute’ policies. Doing nothing is therefore the worst, and most counter-productive, option of all.
The current clean air agenda harms the poor, the economy, and aspects of the environment all at once. No responsible administration should tolerate or allow that, so we commend FairFuelUK’s recommendations listed for the Government’s consideration and implementation.
The Government needs to make up its mind fast and be honest with all road users regarding the future cost of driving. They must not acquiesce to well-paid unelected cycling commissioners, nor evangelise electric vehicles as the ultimate panacea to saving the planet.
They are myopically obsessed to appease the Green Party’s emotional baseless evidence to bring forward a ban on the sales of diesel vehicles to 2030.
The road charging scheme reported by Express on-line ( https://www.express.co.uk/life-style/cars/1395481/car-tax-changes-update-pay-per-mile-family-road-costs-fairfuel-exclusive), at a reported 75p per mile, will cost a family petrol car driver an eye-gouging £6,500 more than they annually pay now in Fuel Duty and VAT. (This does not include VED changes). An average HGV would pay an astounding £50,000 more to the Treasury per year. Even an environmentally friendly petrol motorbike would pay nearly 1000% more if such an arcane road charging scheme were put in place.
Replacing £40bn-£50bn of Fuel Duty, VAT, VED etc should not involve punishing diesel and petrol drivers but should involve common sense and fairness with all road users paying to use the roads. That includes EVS and Cyclists. The rumoured 75p to 150p per mile road pricing scheme should be dismissed with the contempt it deserves.
Please talk to those stakeholders who can ensure the Treasury maintains income from drivers for the foreseeable future, whilst helping the economy flourish after Covid. Consult with UK’s 37m drivers represented by dedicated professionals not inexperienced well financed environmental groups politically hell bent in destroying our freedom to drive and vehicles of choice.
Current Duty and VAT rates for the average family car is about 9p per mile. Any increase of that level using a road charging model must not increase this current contribution to the Exchequer. An average HGV pays 36p per mile to the Treasury, with a motorbike 7p and a large van 20p per mile.
Here is What a 75p per mile Road Charging will cost Drivers
FairFuelUK | Motorbike | Family Car | Van | HGV |
Annual Data | Petrol | Petrol | Diesel | Diesel |
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Miles Average | 6,000 | 10,000 | 15,000 | 125,000 |
MPG Average | 50.0 | 38.8 | 17.5 | 10.0 |
Gallons/Year | 120 | 258 | 857 | 12,500 |
Litres/year | 546 | 1,172 | 3,897 | 56,826 |
Pump Price/Litre | £1.197 | £1.197 | £1.230 | £1.230 |
Total Fill up cost/Year | £653 | £1,402 | £4,793 | £69,896 |
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VAT Current | £109 | £234 | £799 | £11,649 |
Duty/litre Current | £316 | £679 | £2,258 | £32,931 |
Total Current Tax | £425 | £913 | £3,057 | £44,580 |
% Tax (Duty + VAT) Current | 65% | 65% | 64% | 64% |
Total Tax £/Mile Current | £0.07 | £0.09 | £0.20 | £0.36 |
Total Cost/Mile Current | £0.11 | £0.14 | £0.32 | £0.56 |
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Nick Freeman Road Charging/Mile Proposal | £0.75 | £0.75 | £0.75 | £0.75 |
Total Road Charging Tax would thereforebe | £4,500 | £7,500 | £11,250 | £93,750 |
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Road Charging Tax proposal Difference vs Current | £4,075 | £6,587 | £8,193 | £49,170 |
% increase | 959% | 722% | 268% | 110% |
FairFuelUK recommends that weight of the vehicle should be the variable to influence a fair road user tax. Of course, this means that current Fuel Duty is completely scrapped, and heavy Electric Vehicles contribute fairly and proportionately to a road user levy.
There will be a need for an essential vehicle rebate in this new taxation process, not just for emergency vehicles but particularly for the logistics industry which represents the commercial heartbeat of the economy and a way out for long term repayment of the huge Covid fiscal debt.
And there is a little matter of how this is to be administered. This will be the hardest and most complex part of the road charging process. As technology evolves, a big brother mileage chip must only collect distance driven. Nothing more nothing less. No infringement of privacy and civil liberties be involved. Again, any tax charging mechanism must be created with the full agreement of drivers. FairFuelUK has ideas that will work and will discuss with the Select Committee.
February 2021