Transport secretary Douglas Alexander said the government would ‘listen to people’ and that it was important to ‘deliberate, discuss’ and then take a decision.
His comments come as a petition calling for the scrapping of the ‘planned vehicle tracking and road pricing policy’ posted on the Downing Street website broke through the million-signature barrier at the weekend.
In an interview with the BBC, Alexander said: ‘Ultimately, it will be a matter for parliament to make decisions but it is important that people have the chance to have their say and no doubt people will offer a range of opinions during that debate.’
Although he said it was important to have a proper debate on the subject he stressed that people must recognise that the UK did not have ‘the luxury of doing nothing’, adding: ‘Our roads are literally filling up.’
Since the potential of road pricing was first unveiled by the government in 2005, fleets have worried about the financial impact on their business. High-mileage drivers, even using the least congested roads during quiet periods, would see a massive increase in the cost of motoring. Even charged at an average of 10p per mile, a figure well below any being touted, a 30,000 mile-a-year driver would pay £3,000 a year.
And last year, the Conservatives slated the plan as being ‘all at sea’ and cast doubt on the government’s ability to deliver the scheme (Fleet News, December 14).
Tory transport spokesman Chris Grayling said the government’s poor track record with IT projects meant that keeping track of 28 million cars would prove beyond them.
Speaking in the House of Commons, Grayling said: ‘It would probably be the biggest IT project this country has ever seen – tracking every car on every road for 24 hours a day, collecting the data, processing it, issuing a bill and collecting the money. ’
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