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Hello, I'm Susan Hume and this is the Yesterday in Parliament podcast.

On Thursday, the 18th of September, peers wondered whether road pricing, where drivers are charged and when, where and how far they go, is the way ahead for the UK.

The transition from petrol and diesel vehicles to electric

may help to freshen our air, but it won't refresh the Treasury's coffers.

At the moment, fuel duty raises around £24 billion a year,

so with all cars on our roads forecast to be electric within 20 years, that could

create a dangerous pothole in government revenues. A conservative former transport secretary, Lord

Young, suggested one way to fill that hole. That could be made good by road pricing based on the

distance of motorist travels, the time, the place and the distance.

Modern technology makes that possible.

It would reduce congestion and make better use of our railways.

But it is a politically sensitive idea

and so the Treasury Minister, Lord Livermore, was blunt.

My Lord, the government has no plans to introduce road prices.

He went on to explain that some tax was now levied on electric vehicles and the government

had to balance conflicting needs on climate change and making sure people could still afford to drive.

Technology such as GPS tracking means vehicles could be charged according to when and when they're being driven.

A non-party peer Lord Bert thought there were a lot of advantages.

A flexible system of road user charging could bring many benefits.

For example, an allocation of free mileage for the less well-off, rate set to incentivise

decarbonisation, dynamic pricing to reduce peak time congestion. Lord Livermore was polite,

...