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Mr. Howarth: To a certain extent, a parking meter is a voluntary charge--people decide whether they will accept it or not. They can find a place that does not have parking meters and take the tube or whatever, but congestion charging is a mandatory charge that they can avoid only by not coming into the area where the charge is levied. There is, I grant, a similarity; I shall not be stupid about it. However--I do not wish to detain the House too much longer--the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders Ltd. and the Engineering Employers Federation have both made it clear that they are very concerned about congestion charging.
Mr. Snape: What about the CBI?
Mr. Howarth: The Engineering Employers Federation has a lot more to do with the constituency of the hon. Gentleman than the CBI.
Therefore, I believe that new clause 28 is a good measure. Schedule 11 provides for hypothecation of the net proceeds of receipts from congestion charging. The new clause says that the people who are to pay the charge should be the beneficiaries of it. There is no difference between the Opposition and Government on the principle of hypothecation. My hon. Friend the Member for Poole (Mr. Syms) is saying that there is a case for the proceeds to be used
- solely and exclusively for the purpose of improving roads and public transport for the benefit of those who are subject to the charge,
Before congestion charges are imposed--if they are--may I put the following suggestion to the Minister? One way in which congestion could be reduced is by adopting the type of policy that is used in Germany. I am told that we use it here, but I see no evidence of it, save on the A4 at Slough. In Germany, it is called die grune Welle--the green wave. Traffic lights are sequenced so that, if people travel at a constant speed, the lights turn green as they approach them.
On our main roads into and out of London, we should introduce the policy of a green wave--it is nothing to do with the Green party, of course. At the moment, people set off from one traffic light and see that the next one in the distance is green, but, by the time they get to it, it has gone red. That must have a substantial impact on the volume of congestion in our major cities. I make a suggestion to the Minister--he can take it up for free: that practical proposition could be applied to traffic management in cities and will benefit the travelling public.
Mr. Snape: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Howarth: I am sorry, but I have already spoken enough and I will not give way; forgive me.
Mr. Gray: I rise briefly to speak to an important new clause and to give the Minister the maximum time to reply to the debate and, by some means, to try to explain to the listening public and to others why he intends to bring in what will without question be a very damaging new stealth tax on the motorists of Britain, following the great increases in petrol tax and in vehicle excise duty.
There is no question about it: when the Minister brings in his congestion and workplace charging, it will be massively unpopular throughout the country and damaging to motorists. [Interruption.] If his response is that it will not be unpopular or damaging to motorists--the gasps from the Labour Benches suggest that that will be his response--I suggest that it will not do the work for which it is designed because, presumably, only those people who do not wish to pay the tax will get off the road.
Congestion and workplace charging have three possible purposes. The first, of course, is to reduce congestion; I will come back to that. The second is to raise funds for the specific purpose of improving public transport in general; that is what the new clause is about. The third--I have a shrewd suspicion that it may be the most realistic--is to raise funds in general for other Government purposes. It is perfectly legitimate for Governments to decide to introduce a new tax to fund
services such as schools or hospitals. Although there is nothing wrong with doing that, we must be clear that that is what we are doing.The first option--introducing a tax to reduce congestion--seems the least likely to be successful. Let us imagine what would happen if there were such a tax. Let us imagine that the congestion tax for London was a punishing £10 per day, and that the parking charge was £3,000 annually--which is the figure being put around by the Road Haulage Association. Let us imagine that the people of London faced those taxes. What would happen when poor people and disabled people who had to get to work in London were driven off the cleared roads of London?
Two things would happen. First, the roads would be clear for exactly the wrong type of people--those who simply do not mind paying the tax, such as Members of Parliament. The roads would be nice and clear for us to get to this place easily, especially if parking charges--as in the Government's carefully crafted Bill--did not apply to parking at the House. The roads would also be nice and clear for fat cats in the City of London. However, the poor and other people who cannot pay, the ill and disabled, students and people going to football matches, doctors attending emergency surgeries and people going to man fire brigades, would simply not be able to work.
Nevertheless, good luck to the fat cats and to Members of Parliament. We know that the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions likes the road to be clear for his two--or more--Jags. However, the tax will not reduce congestion.
Mr. Geraint Davies (Croydon, Central): Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Gray: The hon. Gentleman has just strolled into the Chamber, at the very last minute, without attending any of the debate. Now he wants to get a bit of a mention in his local newspaper by making a cheap intervention. In Committee, his interventions were simply not worth listening to. However, if he sits still and listens quietly, he might learn a thing or two. I have no intention of giving way to him.
The second problem with the principle of trying to reduce congestion by using congestion charging is the possible consequence of success. If the roads of London were clear, all those who currently stay at home because of road congestion would say, "I know what we're going to do--let's drive into London, into the city, because there's no congestion." The tax will have an effect exactly opposite to that intended. It could--if it works at all--increase congestion.
New clause 28 deals with how the money raised from such swingeing taxes--if they are introduced--should be used. I should point out that the Labour party seems to be in some disarray about whether charges will be introduced. Although Labour councillors in London's new Assembly seem to be saying that they do not want congestion charging, which they know would be electoral suicide, Mr. Livingstone--who, I believe, is still a Labour party supporter in one way or another--is all in favour of it.
The Government also seem to be all in favour of congestion charging; they propose to introduce it. They also included a congestion charging provision in the Greater London Authority Act 1999. Although the
Assembly Members do not favour it, the Government do. However, let us imagine that Assembly Members did favour it. What would happen to the money? As I said--
Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. As the hon. Gentleman will know, transport in Greater London is dealt with in other legislation, not in the Bill. Perhaps he will speak to new clause 28.
Mr. Gray: Forgive me, Mr. Deputy Speaker, but the point that I was making is that the 1999 Act makes provision for congestion charging and charging for workplace parking. That provision was the first national exemplar of how such charging should work.
Mr. Deputy Speaker: If we debate that subject, perhaps the hon. Gentleman will have an opportunity to talk about those matters. However, new clause 28 is quite clear about what it deals with.
Mr. Gray: I had not intended to talk that much about the 1999 Act, Mr. Deputy Speaker, although it offers a useful exemplar.
The new clause specifies precisely what should happen to the money that will be raised by congestion and workplace charging, whether it is raised in London or elsewhere. The Bill's provisions will, of course, apply across the nation--as you correctly said, Mr. Deputy Speaker. There are two possibilities for what will happen to the money, the first of which is that it will be truly hypothecated. I shall deal with that possibility in a moment.
Secondly, the money could be used like normal taxation, for services such as schools and hospitals--as I said, that is a perfectly legitimate ambition of any Government. It reminds me of a comment made in this place by Mr. Lloyd George. When introducing vehicle taxation, he said that he needed to tax cars because more money needed to be spent on roads. He intended to hypothecate the money from vehicle excise duty and spend it all on improving Britain's roads. Today, 90 per cent. of that money is spent for other purposes. As long ago as Lloyd George's time, hypothecation was shown to be a myth.
The Government pay lip service to hypothecation. They say that they want to bring in a huge new tax on motorists to improve public transport. That is politically attractive, because there are people who will say "I don't mind paying the tax if it is going to get other people off the road so that I can use my car."
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