Many experts believe the debate over how to tax road usage in the age of electric vehicles is far from over.
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00:00Every government wants to be popular, because they do want to be voted in again, and I suspect
00:08that trying to replace fuel duty with pay-for-mile would be something akin to a poll tax.
00:17People would be up in arms, because of course they would see that their costs would go quite
00:22considerably up, obviously depending upon the number of miles, but an estimate that
00:25I've seen is that it would cost about £1,000 for somebody doing 7,000 miles, which is not
00:31that many miles, that's about 500 or so a month.
00:35So as I say, it's something which this government may come back to, but as I say, I think they've
00:41had their fingers burnt, therefore of course I think there is a danger it will get kicked
00:46into the next parliament, and somebody will eventually have to take some sort of decision,
00:50but public climate or the public reaction to policy can, as you say, help to shape policy,
00:59and I think that this government is particularly acutely aware of that.
01:03How might a possible pay-per-mile system disproportionately impact different demographics, obviously low-income
01:09families will be hit, but also rural communities, they rely heavily on driving, they're not
01:14in big cities, they don't have public transport, how might it affect them disproportionately?
01:19Of course if you're on low income but depend upon your car, particularly if you've got
01:22a family and children that you've got to get to school, now of course the counter-argument
01:28to that is that we need to get children walking to school, but hey, that's a tough chestnut
01:33to crack, and there is no doubt, dare I say, certainly where I live in Birmingham, every
01:39time we get on the roads, it seems to be chock-a-block, so we do need some sort of system to try and
01:44regulate that, but, and indeed Birmingham is a good example, they introduced a congestion
01:49charge a couple of years ago, and all of these arguments that people who are on low incomes
01:54would be, as you say, disproportionately hit, so there is that sort of problem.