Ladyman responds to road pricing questions

Transport Minister, Stephen Ladyboy Ladyman (sorry, I forgot Dizzy has a copyright on calling him that), has finally faced the critics over road pricing on his webchat, earlier this evening.

It's good that he has faced questioning on the subject, allbeit from the safety of being behind his computer, but there were a few points in the chat that he raised, that I have got a few issues with.

Firstly he stated, "I promise this is a real debate. If we don't convince the public then road pricing simply won't happen."

Sorry Stephen I don't believe that for a second, just look at Labour Mayor, Ken Livingstone and the "consultation" that was held on the c-charge extension. No-one wanted it, but it still happened.

Secondly, when asked about how information would be stored he replied, "We can guarantee that we will respect privacy in a road pricing system. We are looking at ways to do this and one way is to have the money collected by a trusted third party."

Nobody trusts this government with holding our information in a central database, let alone a third party.

Then was his answer to whether road pricing would be used to replace current road charges, ie. vehicle duty, he replied, "Because road pricing is about changing from the way we pay to use the roads today to a new way of paying to use the roads. In other words reviewing the current taxes on motorists would be part of the package. If we decide to go for a national system then it wouldn't be in place until at least 2015 and I have no way of knowing what decisions the chancellor might make in 2015."

Labour have yet to offset any new tax by replacing old ones, so I don't hold any hope for the future on that one. It is far more likely that road charging will be in addtion to other duties.

The final point, that made me cringe at just how much of a dream world he lives in, came at the end of the interview when he was asked how foreign visitors would have a "black box" fitted so that they will be charged. Stephen replied "They could 'hire' a box at the port of entry."

I had to laugh at his ignorance at this. After all, if it affects any of our EU neighbours, they will cry foul, push it through the European Parliament, Labour would back down and be walked all over, and not have to have the black box.

I do hope that this is not the only "consultation" on the subject. Londoners know only too well Labour tactics when it comes to consulting on road charges.