My Lords, it is always a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Roberts of Conwy. That role has fallen to me in this House on at least one occasion and in the other place it fell to me on more than one occasion. I cannot promise to accompany him, whether by road, rail or car, on a tour of the Principality, but listening to him and to the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, the principal Front-Bench speaker, I am always struck by how adept the Conservative Party is at adopting the role of the motorist’s friend in these debates. Both those speakers made great play of their support for public transport, but at the same time said that there must be no restraints on motor cars and that we cannot have congestion charging.
One of the great weaknesses of the present charging system as far as roads and motorways are concerned is that once one has purchased a car, whether on hire-purchase or directly, and paid for the petrol, the insurance and all the other things, it does not make any sense to leave it on the drive and catch a bus. The sooner the cost of a journey is more accurately reflected in each journey undertaken, the better. If we had a system of congestion charging that made it apparent, so that there was an easy comparison between using the car and using public transport, that would help to get the modal shift that all of us say we are in favour of. However, as long as the principal opposition party sets its face against any congestion charging, that is not likely to happen.
In my younger days in another place when I had some transport responsibilities, I used to try to write—I am going to show how impartial I am going to be in this debate—into Labour Party manifestos the provision that we should abolish the road fund licence and put the cost on a gallon of petrol, which would more accurately reflect the cost of a journey. Needless to say, most of the opposition to that proposal came from the Principality, particularly from the Swansea area, where civil servants who earned their living in the motor tax department could see redundancy looming if my preposterous—in their view—suggestion were adopted.
Local Transport Bill [HL]
Proceeding contribution from
Lord Snape
(Labour)
in the House of Lords on Tuesday, 20 November 2007.
It occurred during Debate on bills on Local Transport Bill [HL].
Type
Proceeding contribution
Reference
696 c775-6 
Session
2007-08
Chamber / Committee
House of Lords chamber
Subjects
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2023-12-16 01:52:40 +0000
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