Road pricing could replace fuel tax, says infrastructure chief

Road pricing, or pay-as-you-go charging for vehicles, may need to be introduced to fill a growing multibillion-pound hole in the national finances from the rise of the electric car.
That is the warning from Sir John Armitt, the head of the National Infrastructure Commission (NIC), to the Treasury, which faces losing income on fuel taxes and vehicle excise duty, from which zero-emission cars are exempt.
“Politically it’s a very difficult issue,” he said. “Many people will say road pricing is inevitable. Personally, I don’t see why it should be any different to anything else.”
Armitt, 78, had his chairmanship of the NIC extended before the Labour government set up its new National Infrastructure and Service Transformation Authority.
Road fuel taxes and car tax together bring in up to £35 billion to the Treasury.
Armitt said: “We pay for all our other infrastructure services as we use them. We pay for driving on the road via petrol tax. If you’re going to lose the petrol tax what is government going to replace it with?”
The UK already has some road pricing schemes, such as the congestion charge and ultra-low-emission zones in London and the privately built M6 toll road around Birmingham, but nationally they are limited and the concept always excites controversy and often hostility.
Armitt, who is best remembered for heading the Olympic Delivery Authority for the London 2012 Games and before that Network Rail, said: “This is a really big issue. At the extreme you could pay a different rate, per time of day, per type of road you were driving on, anywhere in the country and you just get a bill because it would all be monitored remotely.
“At the end of the day, it’s the public who pay. We pay either through our taxation or we pay at the point of use or our pensions are used to invest.”