Dirty budget attacks clean Euro IV cars

The ABD today castigated Gordon Brown for his Budget in which he announced that road tax on so-called 'gas-guzzlers' would nearly double to £400 for clean but large engined Euro IV cars by April 2008, and petrol tax would rise by nearly 6p/litre (26p/gallon) over the next three years.

ABD Environment Spokesman Ben Adams comments, "This is just old-fashioned politics of envy and car hatred wrapped in a transparent green veil. The sun, not carbon dioxide, drives the world's climate over decades and centuries, but blaming carbon dioxide gives politicians an excuse to raise taxes and a smokescreen for lifestyle engineering. In trying to stop natural and inevitable climate change by taxing cars, the Chancellor might as well try to stop night falling by taxing light bulbs rather than banning them. If all of the UK's output of carbon dioxide was stopped overnight, not just from cars, and we regressed to a medieval lifestyle with a consequential massive loss of life, China's economic growth would get the deficit made up in 700 days - as noted by the Prime Minister."

ABD spokesman Paul Biggs said, "Road tax is a tax on vehicle ownership, not vehicle use. Families who need large cars will be paying eight pounds a week just for the privilege of owning their car, but it won't end there. The usual suspects are already calling for the Chancellor to increase car tax on band D upwards. Owners of cars in lower tax bands should not be complacent. Today they came for large engined cars, how long will it be before they come for yours? Fuel duty is already an efficient way to tax fuel use as cars with poor mpg figures already cost more to run. As the report from Dr David Newberry has shown, car owners already pay more than the costs of road infrastructure, accidents and environmental impact put together. This latest Budget is simply fiscal greed on top of the tax on top of fuel duty and continues New Labour's war on the motorist."

Given that such a small proportion of the tax raised is actually spent on the roads the British people will be getting an even worse deal than they do already. For the Chancellor to impose big increases in fuel duty shows that he's learned nothing from the fuel protests of 2000.