February 4th - The Road To The Future
Simon Calder's Independent Travel Podcast
The Independent
3.6 • 628 Ratings
🗓️ 4 February 2022
⏱️ 6 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Motorists might have to pay by the mile in future, a cross-party Commons select committee has proposed as they see no "viable alternative" as a tax shortfall arises from the shift to electric vehicles that could be as big as £35bn. The committee has warned without urgent reform to taxation, the UK could face an under-resourced and congested future, with sales of new petrol and diesel vehicles set to be banned from sale from 2030 as part of the government's 2050 net zero plans. But will the public go for it?
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello and thanks for joining me for the final independent travel podcast of the week. |
| 0:07.2 | With me, Simon Calder, bringing you the latest on travel. |
| 0:12.2 | Well, the news today on the travel front is that in around 15 years, |
| 0:27.2 | the government will run out of money specifically from car drivers |
| 0:37.0 | basically at the moment the chancellor gets 35 billion pounds a year which is an impressive amount about £500 for every person in the UK from |
| 0:41.7 | motorists. It comes in the form of vehicle excise duty, that's about £7 billion, and that goes |
| 0:50.1 | well, really straight to keep the roads in good repair but the other 28 billion pounds goes to the |
| 1:01.7 | treasury and it's used to pay for all sorts of things a very useful source of revenue and not one |
| 1:08.3 | that any chancellor would want to give up. However, things are changing. |
| 1:16.8 | And what in particular is happening is that people, not that mini, which is just driven past, |
| 1:22.3 | people are getting electric cars. The great thing about an electric vehicle is that, well, although it might cost a bit more than normal, |
| 1:31.7 | you're not going to have to pay any excise duty or any duty on fuel. And of course, there's various ways of getting the |
| 1:41.0 | electricity that you need. As it happens, I'm right outside now the |
| 1:46.6 | electric transport shop in York. Hasn't got any cars in but it's got lots and lots of e-bikes |
| 1:54.1 | and a very impressive place too. Now the government has said we love electric cars an awful lot more than that silver |
| 2:05.5 | Volvo that's just gone past or the, oh, that's a cash kai. |
| 2:11.3 | They're all rolling past me here. |
| 2:14.7 | And yes, the government doesn't want to have a lot of diesel and petrol cars. |
| 2:21.9 | They are all going to be gone quite soon. No new diesel or petrol cars will be sold from 2030 |
| 2:29.4 | onwards and even hybrids will be gone five years later. All of which may well be great for the planet, |
| 2:37.8 | but it's not brilliant if you are in the position of needing to collect quite a lot of money. |
| 2:44.6 | And so, therefore, you have to think of another plan. |
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