Car tax

I have to endorse the aspirations of Suffolk Acre (EADT 19/11/09) in calling for a reduction in car tax for those in rural areas.

Currently car tax is being used as a blunt tool with not enough regard being taken to human nature. It is no good telling people that they need to do more to reduce carbon emissions and then sitting back and waiting for them to behave more responsibility. Smoking kills but people but people still smoke. Women still drink to excess at times despite the risk of breast cancer as a result. (It is known that more than 3 units a day increase the chance of breast cancer by 7% for each additional unit). So to expect people 'as a whole' to do the right thing for the community, when they don't do the right thing for their own health is just wishful thinking.

But they will act to cut to reduce the amount of money they have to pay out. So car tax policy needs to work on human nature.

Liberal Democrats would dramatically increase car tax to £2,000 on vehicles with emissions of 225kg per kilometre, while at the same time cutting car tax on low polluting vehicles, and providing rural householders in sparsely populated areas with a 50% car tax rebate. We would combine this with a 2% income tax cut so that the changes were tax neutral, and since we will only apply it when people buy new cars so we will not penalise those who cannot afford to change their car early. This financial incentive is the sort of tool needed to get people acting in their own interest to reduce carbon emissions.

Of course in the East of England we are the world leaders in developing electronic cars, which have a running cost of nearer 2p a mile and no direct emissions! So the sooner we have an infrastructure in place to support electronic car fuelling points the better. There are now electronic cars that can be refuelled in just ten minutes! We should be building houses that generate more electricity than they use so we can fuel our cars from our surplus electricity.

The technology is available now what we lack is people in power with the drive and ambition to drive these programmes forward. Our government is far more concerned with the loss of petrol tax revenue and taxing our electricity bills than doing what needs to be done.