This paper by Professor David Begg and Claire Haigh sets out a proposal for a national road pricing scheme.
It forms supplementary written evidence submitted by Greener Transport Solutions to the Transport Select Committee Inquiry into Zero Emissions Vehicles and Road Pricing.
Road pricing is one of the best fiscal changes that any government could have made over the last generation. It has always been the most effective way to tackle road congestion and pollution, and now there is a fiscal imperative with the prospect of a £40 billion hole in the public finances as receipts from road taxation disappear.
The showstopper has been that road pricing is considered politically too difficult. But now we face a new dilemma.
With petrol and diesel vehicles to be replaced by electric vehicles who pays for Britain’s roads?
