Fleet News secured exclusive interviews with the three most important political figures for fleets – transport minister Paul Clark, Conservative shadow transport minister Theresa Villiers and Liberal Democrat transport spokesman Norman Baker.

With the election just months away, we quizzed them about their policies on key transport issues and what they have in store for fleets.

Here we reveal their policies on one of the most critical issues for fleets - the future for national road pricing.

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Play AudioFleet News Audio Links

  1. Paul Clark, Labour Transport Minister talks about National Road Pricing
  2. Theresa Villiers, Shadow Transport Minister for the Conservatives talks about National Road Pricing
  3. Norman Baker, Shadow Transport Spokeman for the Liberal Democrats talks about National Road Pricing
     

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Transport’s political hot potato is road charging and how to win support for what some already believe is the inevitability of pay-per-mile driving.

The question of how to proceed is likely to raise its head as soon as election fever settles, although it is unlikely to happen before 2015. 

“We have ruled out a national road pricing scheme in the next parliament,” says Paul Clark.
However, Labour is already amassing pricing information from trials. “We have a demonstrations project that looks at what is available,” says Clark. 

“We will make a clear statement in the next parliament.”
The Conservatives are adamant that road pricing will not happen on their watch. 

“In my view it is not going to happen,” said Theresa Villiers.
“It is absolutely not an inevitability. I think it is an IT disaster waiting to happen and I’ve made my opposition clear and so has the party.”

The Lib Dems take the opposite view. Should they get into power then fleets need to prepare for national road pricing, although Norman Baker claims that it will be revenue neutral with petrol and road tax replaced by the new system.

“We are great believers in road pricing. Road pricing is one of the ways to ring-fence funds for transport,” he says.

The Lib Dems winning the next election is a slim possibility, but a hung parliament is not out of the question. 

“If this happens then we will enter into discussions on how we proceed,” says Baker. 

The Lib Dems are proposing a gantry system on major roads, says Baker. “We want a charge that is applicable to motorways and trunk roads and which uses a tag and beacon system. 

The money raised would be used to cut fuel duty – probably by 10% - and abolish VED down to the minimum EU level.”

Pre-election Special - Road Charging

To read the other interviews in this series, with the option of listening to the audio files, follow the links below.