The government is facing increasing pressure to look seriously at a way of taxing motorists who drive EVs, with the 2030 ban on the sale of new petrol and diesel vehicles otherwise set to leave the Treasury with a £35bn fiscal black hole.
Speaking in front of MPs in the Commons Liaison Select Committee, outgoing prime minister Boris Johnson recently accepted that it was “certainly the case that we will need a substitute for fuel duty”. The need is clear: combined with vehicle excise duty (VED), the two taxes amount to 7 per cent of the exchequer’s annual take, although Number 10 has been accused of blocking the Treasury from setting up a working body to investigate the issue.
Road pricing is not a new concept and it has always proved a difficult political sale.
“The government doesn’t tend to allow you to say the words ‘road pricing’ in the corridors of Whitehall; it’s almost like swearing because it’s such a sensitive issue,” says Glenn Lyons, Mott...