Road Tolling
Good morning. The first item of business is a debate on motion S2M-5598, in the name of David Davidson, on road tolling.
This debate is about Tavish's toll tax. The Scottish Conservatives have secured the debate to provide an opportunity for all MSPs to respond to the well-publicised proposal by the Scottish Executive's Minister for Transport to introduce unique tolls on Scotland's roads at an early date—not that his Executive-approved amendment states that with the same urgency. The Scottish Conservatives have consistently been the only party in Scotland that is against tolls. The revenue-neutral Scottish road pricing scheme proposed by an Executive minister simply cannot happen. It is a fiction.
Will the member take an intervention?
Not at this time.
Tavish Scott's proposal that the United Kingdom Treasury should give up control of fuel duty taxation will not be given serious consideration. Will we really see empty, English-based lorries, buses and cars queuing up at Gretna to fill up on cheap Scottish fuel? The Gretna gas-guzzling congestion that that would cause would have more effect than Hadrian's wall had in the days of the Romans.
Tavish Scott wants Scotland to go it alone on this matter. He wants Scotland to be a guinea pig in an experiment. We Scots do not want that. The tax-raising Liberal Democrats will tax anything—moving or not—from land to carrier bags and from hotel bedrooms to caravans. On top of that, they would foist a 6.5 per cent increase in taxation on households.
Will the member take an intervention now?
No, thank you.
Will he take an intervention at all?
When the time comes for the minister.
Scotland will not tolerate that any more than it will tolerate the Labour road pricing scheme that is being promoted at Westminster.
This morning, the Federation of Small Businesses in Scotland published a paper stating clearly that pay-as-you-go will price Scotland's small businesses off the road, because they do not make unnecessary road journeys—they make journeys only to service their clients and their businesses. The same holds true for other Scottish businesses.
The RAC Foundation for Motoring paper on road charging showed that more than 1.8 million motorists throughout the UK have petitioned the Prime Minister to register their anger about the introduction of road pricing. We Conservatives, too, have successfully launched our own anti-road tolls campaign, at www.scotlandsaysnototolls.com. Most important, though, when asked by the RAC whether the Government would limit its scheme to a handful of the most congested roads, 84 per cent of respondents would not trust the Government to stick to its promise. Motorists believe that road pricing would result in yet another new stealth tax. The Scottish Conservatives see road tolling as a direct hit on the least well-off motorists in Scotland. Those who would be hit are people who live in rural areas and need to get to work, and pensioner householders with limited income, whose only means of transport is the motor car. Let us be honest: Tavish's toll tax, as he has proposed it, would add enormous costs to Scottish business and people in work, as well as to those motorists who, as taxpayers, have already paid for Scotland's roads.
It is hypocritical of the Lib-Lab pact and the Scottish National Party to say yes to tolling nationally then to become vehement opponents of the local proposals that they helped to vote for in the Transport (Scotland) Act 2001. I remind members of that act, and those parties in the chamber that supported it and who then, within weeks—
Since we are intent on historical accuracy, am I right in saying that the Tories voted for the Transport (Scotland) Act 2001?
We voted against part 3. Mr Ewing's friend, Mr Crawford, was vehement in his support for part 3, but followed it up with an anti-tolls campaign—I believe that it was in Fife. As far as the Liberal Democrats are concerned, the words "Willie Rennie" and "Dunfermline by-election" should prove my point. Indeed, Alistair Carmichael MP, the Liberals' transport spokesman at Westminster, accused the Prime Minister of a lack of leadership on road tolls. Mr Carmichael stated:
"To convince the public of the case for road user pricing, he must give a guarantee that it will be a different tax, not an extra tax. Taxes need to be greener and fairer, but not higher."
The Tavish tax would be higher. The Liberal Democrats cannot have it both ways. The RAC report indicated clearly that the people do not trust the minister on the issue.
Bruce Crawford said:
"It should be for local authorities to decide, following appropriate consultation, whether schemes are viable and suitable to their circumstances."—[Official Report, 20 December 2000; Vol 9, c 1190.]
Today, however, the SNP amendment makes no mention of the SNP's support for councils setting their own toll charges, nor does it mention removing bridge tolls, which I thought was SNP policy. What are we to believe is the new SNP policy position? No doubt Mr Ewing will enlighten us in due course.
What I find amazing is the direct attack on civil liberties, which appears to be supported by the Scottish Green Party. The Green party clearly supports the principle of the spy in the sky. Where will it end?
I am most grateful to the member for finding the time to give way.
On 8 February this year—just a few days ago—Mr Murdo Fraser said:
"If the minister had listened … he would have heard me saying that we support national road pricing in principle."—[Official Report, 8 February 2007; c 31913.]
Would it be fair for that quotation to appear on the Conservatives' website?
I have little doubt that my colleague will respond to that.
As far as I am concerned, if there is a debate it should be a national debate. This morning, Mr Scott should say how he can defend a unique tax on Scotland—a tax that only Scottish motorists will pay, because only Scotland will be the guinea pig. I find it hard to believe that Mr Scott thinks that Scotland is a region of the United Kingdom that is amenable to being a guinea pig.
The Scottish people need to know members' positions in the debate. Two parties—Labour and the Liberal Democrats—are in power, and the other—the SNP—has aspirations to be in power. Let us have some honesty. Is it tolls or not? Should motorists pay more? Should Scotland suffer this price of devolution? Will we see encouragement for enterprise and employment, and help for those who rely on the car, or is this simply yet more taxation? This is an opportunity for every member to decide where they stand. Do they want increased taxation on Scottish motorists? If so, they should support Tavish Scott. If they do not, they should join us in the lobby at 5 o'clock and vote against him.
I move,
That the Parliament opposes the introduction of any additional nationwide charges for using Scotland's existing roads and calls for the repeal of Part 3 of the Transport (Scotland) Act 2001.
This is a great opportunity to debate the issue. I particularly thank my good friend Fergus Ewing for inviting me so vigorously to join the debate; I did not know he cared. I am genuinely touched by that.
I welcome the opportunity to deal with the scaremongering and utter misinformation from the Tories. Mr Davidson accuses me of proposing a toll tax. Not only do the Tories have form when it comes to poll taxes, but Murdo Fraser's position, as Jeremy Purvis has just shown, is also for a toll tax. That would be Murdo's toll tax. If David Davidson wants to misrepresent my position, I will misrepresent Mr Fraser's position.
The Conservative party has never said that it objects in principle to a national road pricing scheme. What differentiates us from the minister is that the minister wants a unique tax in Scotland alone. Is that not his position?
No. That is not my position, but I am very pleased that the Conservatives have put on the record in Parliament their support for road user pricing. We all heard that and it is on the record. The Scottish National Party heard it, the Liberal Democrats heard it, Labour colleagues heard it and even Conservative back benchers—who are a little bit quiet at the moment—heard it.
Let me be crystal clear. Must we tackle congestion on Scotland's roads? Yes. Will Scotland's economy grow if the country's roads are gridlocked? No. Does this Government want higher taxes on motorists? No. Did members hear me? I said no. Will there be a road pricing pilot if that means extra motoring costs with no alternatives? No. Do we need a proper, balanced discussion of the options that are open to the country to tackle those issues? I believe that we do, and I think that Murdo Fraser believes so, too; he admits, and has just confirmed, that his position and that of the Conservatives is to support road user pricing in principle.
Will the member give way?
No. Mr Davidson did not give way to Mr Rumbles, although he was asked four times to do so. Mr Davidson can hardly expect to jump to his feet now and intervene.
We want to tackle congestion, not to penalise motorists.
I am disappointed but hardly surprised by the Tories' failure to provide any real alternative in their motion. Mr Fraser has once again confirmed that they have such an alternative, which is the debate that the whole chamber wants to have on road user pricing.
We will take the climate change challenge seriously. We will consider using road pricing—with the UK Government and using our devolved powers—as a mechanism to address traffic congestion. The solution to congestion and climate change is not more motoring taxes. People will not accept that, but they will consider a balanced approach. They will consider road user pricing charges if they are balanced by cuts in motoring taxation.
A BBC poll on Tuesday asked what would make road user pricing acceptable. In response, 55 per cent said that it would be acceptable if the money raised was invested in public transport, while 53 per cent said yes to road user pricing if the money raised was used to cut other road taxes. When the Secretary of State for Transport was asked by the BBC on Tuesday whether, in the light of that poll, the UK Government would reduce other road taxes, he said:
"We've said this is obviously an issue we would have to look at in the years before making a decision about a national road-pricing scheme."
I welcome that statement.
It is meaningless—like Tavish Scott's.
Mr McLetchie can barrack me as much as he likes. Road pricing as a replacement cost, not as an additional cost—as Mr McLetchie tried to say on Radio Scotland; I listened to him carefully this morning—could be a win-win for Scotland. For the avoidance of doubt, I re-emphasise the words "replacement cost", not "additional cost". There is congestion in our cities—I think that most rational people would accept that that is the case—so people need real alternatives to the car.
We are investing record amounts in public transport. We are building new rail lines and investing in the provision of bus and tram services—all of which will help to reduce congestion—and we will invest more. Under road pricing, we can tackle congestion by giving people better public transport choices.
The minister will recall the debate in the Parliament on 8 February, during which Murdo Fraser for the Conservatives said:
"indeed, the principle of a road pricing scheme is one that many people in our party find attractive".—[Official Report, 8 February 2007; c 31896.]
Will the minister name those in the Conservative party who are finding it attractive this morning?
We know that Mr Fraser finds it attractive, but the rest of them are not looking too comfortable at the moment. However, it is not for me to speak for the Conservatives. I am sure that they will provide clarification in the fullness of time.
In rural Scotland, the car is still a necessity, not a luxury, and congestion is not the problem. Therefore, rural motoring should become cheaper under a road pricing scheme. That would recognise that public transport choices are not so readily available.
Mr Davidson raised one fair point, so let me deal with the serious concern that Big Brother would be watching us. Road pricing need not intrude on personal privacy—that would depend on the system that was chosen. There are options that respect personal freedom and which do not track a vehicle's every move. The concerns are legitimate, but those options would not infringe on privacy.
Congestion and the reliability of journey times are increasing problems. In 2005, almost a quarter of all peak-hour journeys in Scotland were reported as being delayed by congestion. Yesterday, we published a report on congestion data. It found that in the most congested parts of the trunk road network, traffic was increasing at one and half per cent per annum, while congestion was increasing at four and a half per cent per annum—that is three times the rate of increase for traffic.
We must look at the options for developing the economy. It is sensible that transport policy considers road user pricing, but above all that must mean that we tackle congestion while not penalising motorists.
I move amendment S2M-5598.2, to leave out from "opposes" to end and insert:
"welcomes the Scottish Executive's massive increase in funding for public transport since 1999; notes the growing problem of traffic congestion in Scotland and the impact this has on the economy and the impact of pollution on health and the environment; notes the lack of an alternative from the opposition parties to tackling congestion; notes that the Executive does not support penalising motorists, and believes that the potential benefits of all new measures to tackle congestion, such as road user charging, need to be fully assessed, tested and evaluated in order to keep Scotland moving."
The SNP is opposed to a system of road tolls. Over the past few weeks, a debate has been led by the Prime Minister and by Mr Scott, in which a total lack of any detailed policy has come from either source. The Prime Minister, in response to the 1.8 million people who have signed the online petition, stated that
"stories about possible costs are simply not credible, since they depend on so many variables yet to be investigated, never mind decided."
The Prime Minister does not have a clue what the road pricing policy would mean in practice and the Liberal Democrats, who wish to pilot such a scheme in Scotland, have not begun to spell out what it would mean in practice. The technology and logistical problems cannot be addressed for 10 years, so the policy cannot be introduced for 10 years. I thought that Governments were supposed to govern for the period for which they were elected, not to concentrate on a time five years after that. They may as well pilot space travel for the general public.
The SNP would tackle congestion in practical and effective ways, two of which are spelled out in our amendment. First, we would build on the existing park-and-ride schemes and establish more of them, particularly around cities—around Edinburgh and, in particular, around the ring road. We would also establish park-and-ride schemes at stations. That is happening. Only in that way will we encourage motorists to leave their cars at home.
Secondly, we would encourage flexible working and home working. The total distance travelled on Scotland's roads for the past two years has been 43,000 million kilometres. Some commentators estimate that we could cut between 5 and 10 per cent of that figure if we were to establish effective flexible working and home working. That could lead to between 2,000 million and 4,000 million kilometres of journeys by car being taken off our road. That is a practical and effective measure that we can put in place. That is why the SNP, unlike the Prime Minister, the Executive and the Liberal Democrats, will establish that policy.
I thank Mr Ewing for giving way, unlike the Conservatives. Is he seriously suggesting that the SNP's solution to congestion and the ever-rising number of cars on our roads is more park-and-ride schemes and more flexible working? Is that it?
Absolutely not; we want to go further. This evening, I shall travel to Glasgow to speak at a posh dinner. [Interruption.] For some reason, minister, I was invited as the keynote speaker. I will be taking the train.
Hooray!
Thank you.
I will take the train precisely because, having driven that road many times this year, I know what a problem congestion can be. Part of the problem is the unpredictability—one does not know whether the journey to Glasgow will take about an hour and a half or two or three hours. Therefore, if one has to attend a function or go to a meeting, the train is more effective. That is why the SNP wants to establish the Waverley phase 2 programme, which the Executive has ditched. Experts have established that unless we go ahead with phase 2 of Waverley, our rail system, if all the plans were to go ahead, will be at gridlock very soon—early in the next decade. We want more people to follow my example and take the train. We also want to have more capacity on the train between Glasgow and Edinburgh. In contrast, the Scottish Executive's policy will effectively create gridlock on Scotland's rail system in the next decade at the very time when more drivers will wish to follow my example and take the train.
Will the member give way?
Do I have time, Presiding Officer?
If Mr Fraser is very brief.
The SNP's amendment does not delete the part of our motion that calls for the repeal of part 3 of the Transport (Scotland) Act 2001. Do SNP members now accept that they were wrong to support part 3 of that act, and that they were wrong to attack us for opposing it?
The SNP is wholly opposed to additional taxation on the roads and to road tolls. When we are in government, we will scrap the Forth road-bridge tolls. We are not prepared to allow a piece of legislation to remain on the statute book that could be used to put a charge of £4 or £10 on the Forth road bridge by the back door, as is reported in the Dunfermline papers today. We are not willing or prepared to see that happen, which is why we will support the deletion of that part of the 2001 act.
The Tories gave Scotland the poll tax, and the Liberal Democrats would give Scotland the poll tax on wheels, but the SNP is against Scotland being used as a testing and experimentation ground. I am therefore happy to move the amendment in my name.
I move amendment S2M-5598.1, to insert at end:
"believes further that full fiscal powers should be transferred to the Scottish Parliament in respect of taxation of motorists; notes that levels of taxation levied on motorists by successive Labour and Conservative governments have consistently been, or been among, the highest in Europe; considers that a variety of measures is needed to tackle levels of congestion, including more use of park and ride schemes as well as the use of flexible working and home working, and supports the further expansion of public transport in Scotland to provide people in Scotland with more alternatives to car use."
As a responsible motorist, I resent the Tories' motion because it ducks the problem of congestion that I, as a motorist, and many others in this country face. In essence, the Tories want to run the economy from a traffic jam and keep Britain gridlocked. I am fed up of sitting in Mr Davidson's traffic jams; I want to get Britain moving again. Perhaps Mr Davidson's real fear is of a toll on bandwagons rather than on motorists.
Mr David Cameron said in 2005:
"Overall, the CBI estimates that the costs to employers of transport congestion are around £20bn a year."
In the same speech, he went on to say:
"Britain now needs … the introduction of advanced traffic management methods including new solutions for road charging based on usage and the time of day."
That looks and smells like road user charging to me. So there we go—£20 billion a year is the cost to business in the United Kingdom. Every year in which we fail to act on congestion means more money wasted, fewer jobs and a less competitive Scotland.
Those are not the only costs. In 2000, air pollution caused more than 32,500 premature deaths in the UK. There is a public health crisis.
Will the member take an intervention on that point?
I do not have time.
We are faced with two choices. First, there is the predict-and-provide model of trying to build our way out of the 21 per cent increase that was predicted by Audit Scotland. We know that that cannot be done. We cannot go on building bigger capacity, because more trunk roads generate more traffic. Therefore, we are left with the second option of providing alternatives to the car and a sensible system of demand management, investing in public transport, and tackling specific congestion problems with specific schemes.
Spending on the M74 and the Aberdeen western peripheral route will do nothing to get people out of their cars. Railway stations in Fife are abandoned when they could provide alternatives for people crossing the Tay and Forth bridges by car.
The Executive must lead on demand management.
Will the member give way on the point about the M74?
I do not have time.
I want the minister responsible for transport in the next parliamentary session to stand up for congestion charging proposals with a bit of Ken Livingstone's spirit. It does not matter whether that minister is Tavish Scott, Fergus Ewing, Mark Ballard or whoever, support and direction need to be given to the regional transport partnerships to consider what schemes could deliver demand management alongside ring-fenced investment in public transport. If congestion charging is successful in Scotland, as it has been in London, and if it delivers the benefits that people can experience every day on their way to work, it could pave the way towards the introduction of a broader national charging scheme.
Will the member take an intervention?
I do not have time.
The minister has said that it will be a decade before any national scheme is available. The scheme will require internal tracking devices in vehicles that will be monitored by satellite, and there is no indication that such technology will be available or that it will work. Of course, there are also civil liberties concerns about tracking individual vehicles that need to be tackled.
Now is the time for us to act on tackling congestion, using the tools for congestion charging that are available to us under the transport legislation that is in place. This is not the time to defer action for another decade; it is time to take action.
I move amendment S2M-5598.3, to leave out from "opposes" to end and insert:
"notes that traffic congestion creates a huge burden for society in terms of delays, ill-health and social exclusion; notes that "the CBI estimates that the costs to employers of transport congestion are around £20 billion a year"; recognises that any long-term strategy to reduce congestion and climate changing pollution will require the provision of quality public transport alternatives to car use together with a sensible and appropriate system of demand management; notes the failure of the Scottish Executive to provide leadership over the City of Edinburgh Council's proposal for a congestion charging scheme and the Executive's plans for massive investment in new road capacity; notes that new road capacity has been shown to generate more traffic; notes that studies indicate that the introduction of nationwide road pricing is at least 10 years away; therefore calls on ministers to work with regional transport partnerships to consider the introduction of congestion charging and smart charge schemes at specific pinch points and congested areas of the road network, and believes that, in the immediate term, the Executive must reallocate funding for new road schemes to invest in public transport and cancel plans for new trunk roads that will generate increased traffic such as the M74 extension and the Aberdeen Western Peripheral Route."
Today's debate, initiated by the Tory group of MSPs, is surely one of the most blatantly opportunistic attempts at populism that we have seen in this Parliament—and that is saying something. However, the attempt is doomed to failure because, in their opportunistic rush, the Tories have failed to take into account the public statements made by their own national leadership.
The Scottish Tories ask the Parliament to oppose the introduction of any additional nationwide charges for using Scotland's existing roads. I have checked out the new petition on the Tories' website and, interestingly, it quotes several politicians, including the Prime Minister, the First Minister, and the Secretary of State for Transport. Strangely, it does not quote any of the senior Conservatives at Westminster who have spoken on the issue.
To be helpful to Conservative members, I found a few of those quotations. Mark Ruskell has just used one of them, but it is a good quote, so it is worth using it again. A certain David Cameron MP said:
"Britain now needs a concerted programme of road building"—
I do not think that Mark Ruskell would agree with that aspect of the quotation, which goes on
—"accompanied by the introduction of advanced traffic management methods".
The Tories should listen carefully to the next part of the quotation, which makes reference to
"including new solutions for road charging based on usage and the time of day."
Beyond that, a certain George Osborne MP said in December:
"we are sympathetic to the concept of road pricing".
He was followed by Chris Grayling MP, who wrote in Local Transport Today:
"Demand management is an option and we will look very seriously at road pricing."
I do not think that the voting public will be fooled by the Tories' duplicity and the Tories will be rejected again in May.
What does the Labour Party say?
The Labour Party's position is to—
Aha!
I am setting out the position—I do not know why Tory members are surprised about that.
The Labour Party's position is to take congestion and its consequent impacts on the economy and the environment as serious issues that require serious consideration.
First, we seek to alleviate congestion, particularly in and around Scotland's major cities, through an ambitious expansion of public transport projects, and by giving the travelling public alternatives in going about their daily lives. Capacity has expanded on several main commuter lines including the Fife circle, Bathgate to Edinburgh, Dunblane to Edinburgh and the key Edinburgh to Glasgow service. As a result of that extra capacity and the recent economic growth, the number of rail passengers has grown by almost 50 per cent in the past 10 years.
There has been investment in a number of important bus projects including park-and-ride and concessionary fare schemes. Although the long-term decline in bus usage has been arrested and there have been increases in usage in some recent years, buses are still carrying 6 per cent fewer passengers than they were 10 years ago. However, buses can probably play a big role in the alleviation of congestion in the years ahead.
We are developing and implementing ambitious plans, including the Edinburgh and Glasgow airport rail links, the reopening of the Airdrie to Bathgate railway line, the Stirling-Alloa-Kincardine line and the Edinburgh trams. Of course, this is where SNP members' inconsistency lets them down. They talk about public transport being part of the solution to congestion, but they show lack of support and ambition by withdrawing their support for EARL and the Edinburgh trams. That shows that they are inconsistent and duplicitous on the issue of transport.
If we look to the future, the trend is still towards increased congestion, even with our investments in public transport. If we want to continue our economic growth as well as reduce our carbon emissions, we have to consider other issues. Part of that is the debate on the role of motoring taxation. If we are to debate the adoption of a charging system for road use in the future, we should consider that along with all the existing forms of motoring taxation and ensure that any new form of taxation is fair to motorists, contributes to tackling congestion and allows the UK and Scottish economies to grow.
Will the member give way?
I am sorry, but I was given only four minutes.
I believe that the Executive's amendment strikes the right balance between looking to the long term and making investment here and now to give people genuine opportunities. We should reject the Tory motion and the shallow and inconsistent opportunism that it represents.
I do not know what it is about boys and cars—there should be a testosterone tax. I may be wrong, but I think that I will be the only woman to speak in the debate.
I was one of the 1.8 million people who signed the e-petition to which Tony Blair responded. In his response, he says that road pricing is "a complex subject" and that we need
"a full and frank debate".
We have been here before. We have had full and frank debates about Trident and nuclear power when the Prime Minister had already made up his mind—their purpose was to soften up the electorate for decisions that had already been made. Even when Blair gets a response, as was the case with Iraq when it was discovered that there were no weapons of mass destruction and we went to war anyway, we know what his position is. No one is fooled—a full and frank debate is being held just to soften up the electorate.
Douglas Alexander, who is a self-confessed disciple of Margaret Thatcher, has made clear his support for the proposed tax. Together with his unlikely lieutenant Mr Rumbles, the Government's Minister for Transport, Tavish Scott, wants to pilot the idea in Scotland. Good grief. What an image. Who would want to board a plane that had Tavish Scott at the controls with Mike Rumbles navigating?
I will be fair by contrasting what Tavish Scott says as a Liberal Democrat with what he is allowed to say as a Government minister—we all know that he is two-hats Tavish. As Liberal Democrat transport spokesperson, he said:
"we would replace Brown's blunt motoring taxes with a fairer UK-wide scheme"—
I did not know that he was standing for Westminster—
"which does what it is meant to—tackle congestion and meet … climate change."
The Liberal Democrats cannot do that, of course. Their amendment says that such schemes
"need to be fully assessed, tested and evaluated in order to keep Scotland moving."
That is typical Lib-Dem speak. As a Government minister, Tavish Scott cannot advocate the measures that he proposes as Liberal Democrat transport spokesperson. The Lib Dems are in Government, but at the same time they are not really in Government. Why the Labour Party lets them get away with it after what happened in the Dunfermline and West Fife by-election is a mystery to me. I do not know what dark secrets they hold that allow them to keep Labour in its place.
I thought that I was already paying a road tax through my fuel duty and my car tax. When the fuel tax escalator was first introduced, it added 3p to the price of a litre of fuel and tax accounted for 72.8 per cent of the total cost. That figure has risen to 81.5 per cent. People who live in rural parts of the Borders pay far more than others pay for petrol. The minister said that the proposed new tax will not impact on rural areas because there is no congestion, but that is not true. People who live in rural areas have to use motorways to commute to hospitals in central locations, so they will have to pay the new tax. We are talking about a triple whammy.
It will be interesting to find out what happens when the real consultation takes place on 3 May, when voters in the Scottish Borders and other rural areas at last have the chance to get shot of the hypocrital Liberal Democrats who stand on one corner and say one thing then stand on another corner and say something else. I urge Labour members to come out of their shells and have a go at the Liberals; they know perfectly well that the Liberals are seeing them off day after day on television and in the newspapers. Tavish Scott has been found out—he cannot hide under his Viking hat any longer.
The Liberal Democrats are against further taxation—[Interruption.]
Order.
The Liberal Democrats are against further taxation. I could go on repeating that line for the next four minutes because some members refuse to listen. If they listen, they might learn something. We are against further taxation, we are in favour of fairer taxation and we are in favour of environmental taxation. Unlike the Tories—such as Murdo Fraser and David Davidson, who are sitting beside each other—who are all over the place on the issue, we believe that engagement in the debate offers a great opportunity to rebalance the way in which we tax our motor vehicles. We want to move away from vehicle excise duty and fuel duty and to reconfigure the money that the UK Government receives, so that more of it comes from a tax on congestion. The Liberal Democrats support that move on the condition that it must be made on a revenue-neutral basis.
Mr Rumbles has been careful to stress that the Liberal Democrats' proposal should be adopted on a revenue-neutral basis. However, all the estimates suggest that the set-up costs of a national road pricing scheme would run into hundreds of millions of pounds. How can it be revenue neutral? Who will pay the cost? Is not it the case that there will have to be an additional tax to pay the running and set-up costs?
I can do no better than to quote a certain Murdo Fraser, who said:
"If the minister had listened to my speech, he would have heard me saying that we support national road pricing".—[Official Report, 8 February 2007; c 31913.]
Two weeks is a long time in politics, so Murdo Fraser might have changed his mind since then.
Congestion charging must not be implemented as a money-making exercise for the Government. To put it simply, the great British public does not trust the Government in London to deliver such a revenue-neutral scheme. They do not trust Gordon Brown to alter our taxation system in a fair way. They view the whole debate as being a prelude to a money-making exercise by the Government. While we are on the subject, let us remember that it was the Conservative party that introduced the fuel tax escalator, so let us hear no more of its opposition to such proposals.
Reference has been made to the 1.8 million people who registered their protest about road pricing on number 10's website. I am not surprised by that. It is a manifestation of how unpopular our UK Government is—people do not trust it.
Few people, other than Conservatives such as David Davidson, dispute the need to slow the rate of increase of the number of cars on our roads and of car use in order to combat climate change and to end the worst congestion in urban areas. The Liberal Democrats suggest a system of fair road pricing which, if it were implemented properly, would provide a win-win situation for urban and rural motorists alike.
I know that Mike Rumbles is a stickler for Liberal Democrat policy. One of the sad aspects of my recent illness was that I spent time reading other parties' policy documents. I read the Liberal Democrats' policy document 75, which is about fairer, simpler and greener taxes. It provides a comprehensive explanation of the Lib Dems' tax position. Does it remain Lib Dem policy?
I listened carefully to what the member said, but I am afraid that he must contribute to the debate.
Will the member give way?
I have given way several times already. [Interruption.]
Mr Ewing, please.
We favour a system that makes road use more expensive where it needs to be more expensive—in our congested urban areas—and less expensive in our non-congested largely rural areas. That would represent a win for our rural motorists who need to drive, because the cost of driving would be reduced, and a win for our urban motorists, who could drive on less congested roads.
There are concerns about the attachment of satellite navigation tracking devices to our cars, which could allow Big Brother to watch our every move. The Liberal Democrats support the development and trialling of a far less intrusive passive technology system for road pricing.
The solution to ever-increasing congestion on our roads is a fair system of road pricing. The problem is that people do not trust the present UK Labour Government to proceed with road pricing on that basis. We have to take people with us on this. [Interruption.]
Order.
We must persuade people that we can have a system of road pricing that is fair to all. That is why I am heartened by the BBC poll that shows that 53 per cent of people would back the Liberal Democrats' proposal if it resulted in other taxes being cut. Most people support what we advocate. We want to tackle congestion, but we do not want increased taxation; we want fair taxation.
Two years ago this month, the citizens of Edinburgh voted in a referendum on a proposal from the Labour-led City of Edinburgh Council to introduce a congestion charging scheme. The statutory powers to introduce such schemes were, of course, conferred on Scottish councils by part 3 of the Transport (Scotland) Act 2001—a measure that was supported in Parliament by Labour, Liberal Democrat and Scottish National Party members; that part of the bill was opposed only by the Scottish Conservatives. With that backing, the City of Edinburgh Council pressed ahead with its scheme and £9 million was spent on propaganda to persuade people in Edinburgh that congestion charging would be good for them. Tens of thousands of people were denied the right to vote in the ballot because they were not on the register that was used for that purpose, and the question that was asked conspicuously failed to meet the tests that have been laid down by the Electoral Commission for framing referenda questions. Despite all the efforts to bully, cajole and con people in the city into supporting the congestion charging proposal, the people of Edinburgh said no by a margin of nearly three to one.
One would expect that, in the face of such overwhelming evidence of the unpopularity of the proposition, the Government would listen to the voice of the people and direct its energies at other ways of managing traffic on our roads. Not a bit of it. Let us fast-forward a year and consider the proposition that a variable tolling regime should be introduced on the Forth road bridge. In April 2005, through his officials, the then Minister for Transport, Liberal Democrat Nicol Stephen, instructed the Forth Estuary Transport Authority, or FETA—it sounds like a cheese but it is a transport authority—to replace the current flat-rate toll with a road user charging scheme. Being the good little quango that it is, always obedient to ministerial commands, FETA duly produced a very sophisticated road pricing scheme for the bridge.
By that time, Mr Tavish Scott was in post as Minister for Transport and Telecommunications and Nicol Stephen had moved on to higher obscurity. More significantly, and sadly, the untimely death of Rachel Squire MP led to the Dunfermline by-election. Surprise, surprise—the Liberal Democrats suddenly flip-flopped, just as they had in the Edinburgh congestion charging referendum. Notwithstanding the fact that it was their minister who had ordered FETA to produce a road pricing scheme, opposition to that scheme became the centrepiece of the Liberal Democrats' campaign in the by-election. The rest is history. Mr Scott went into hiding for four weeks and the Liberal Democrats made fools of the Labour party.
After those two results on either side of the Forth estuary, one would have thought that would have been that. Not a bit of it. Having come out of hiding—albeit now disguised with a beard—Mr Scott decided that it was time for the smack of firm Government. Emboldened by support for road pricing being voiced by the Labour Government at Westminster, Mr Scott finally swallowed the brave pill and said that we needed to make road charging happen more quickly in Scotland. Apoplexy reigned.
Will David McLetchie give way?
I am sorry, but I am enjoying this.
The First Minister went spare. In a response to Annabel Goldie last week, he said that the Scottish Executive would not support any pilot scheme in Scotland. However, if we examine the text of the Executive's amendment we see that, instead of ruling out in straightforward terms any suggestion that Scotland should trial such a scheme, the amendment says simply that new measures such as road user charging
"need to be fully tested … and evaluated in order to keep Scotland moving."
That contrasts with the straightforward assertion in our motion that there should be no additional charge on Scotland's motorists for using our roads. What could be simpler than that, and why cannot the Executive say it? The problem with any scheme of assessment, testing or evaluation is simple: Where will such testing and evaluation take place and who will be the guinea pigs? Perhaps we will be told that in the course of the debate—Mr Rumbles might care to volunteer his constituents in West Aberdeenshire.
As roads are clearly a devolved responsibility, we assert the right of the Scottish Parliament to say no to tolls in Scotland and to make an unambiguous statement to that effect to any United Kingdom Government, by virtue of the Sewel convention. We, in Scotland, can and should say no to road tolls. They are a regressive tax that would place further burdens on our motorists, who already pay the highest fuel tax in Europe—which, in itself, is a form of road pricing. The Scottish Conservatives have said no, no and no again in Parliament for the past eight years. None of our opponents can claim the same consistency. On 3 May, voters in Scotland will have an opportunity to stop the tolls at the polls—it is an opportunity that they should seize with alacrity.
When I have foreign guests to stay with me in Edinburgh, they often ask two questions. First, why is congestion on the roads in the UK so bad? Secondly, why is our public transport system so poor? I reply that they have, in fact, answered the questions. We need to deal with congestion because of the impact that it has on our economy, on health, on social exclusion and on the climate.
As Mark Ruskell laid out clearly, we cannot build our way out of congestion. The only way to tackle congestion is investment in public transport together with demand management. I thought that the message was getting through to the Conservative party that we need a system of demand management. I had thought that was why, on 8 February, we heard about Murdo Fraser's support for it. We have heard the quote from David Cameron, giving his support for it, and Chris Grayling MP, the Westminster Conservative transport spokesperson, has said that
"the Conservatives are looking at road pricing options to come up with something more sensible than anything the Government is currently putting forward."
That is the challenge for the Conservatives, and that is what I hoped that the debate would be about—the Conservatives' more sensible approach to demand management.
What is the Conservatives' more sensible approach? It is to say that we are never going to have demand management in Scotland. What absolute nonsense. If the Conservatives say that they want a more sensible scheme of demand management, they should come forward with it instead of giving us this nonsense about being able to tackle congestion without demand management. As has been said, it is nothing more than an attempt at a pre-election bribe. The Conservatives are telling people what they would like to hear, not the truth about how we must tackle congestion.
I welcome Tavish Scott's support for demand management, I welcome Bristow Muldoon's genuine commitment to the expansion of public transport and I welcome Fergus Ewing's support for park-and-ride schemes, home working schemes and the upgrading of Waverley station. However, I would say to Fergus Ewing that, without demand management, although investments can be made and there can be park-and-ride schemes, we will not do anything to bring down the huge increase in traffic and congestion.
Is Mark Ballard saying that, as far as the Greens are concerned, access to the roads should be rationed according to people's ability to pay?
We will have to ration access to roads, and that will be done either through queuing and congestion—which is what the SNP's proposals would lead to—or through a sensible system that deals with congestion where it occurs. More queues is not a solution to congestion.
Although I welcome Tavish Scott's commitment to demand management, I point out that the Government cannot do that at the same time as it is pouring billions of pounds into new road schemes. There is a massive contradiction in that. We know that more roads like the M74 and the Aberdeen western peripheral route will generate more traffic, so that cannot be a solution.
On local congestion charging schemes, Mark Ruskell was right to say that a decade will pass before there is a national system. That is why we must support brave councillors such as those in Edinburgh who promote congestion charging schemes. It is why we must support FETA when it proposes a system of smart tolls to end the ridiculous situation whereby a heavy goods vehicle is charged less than a bus is charged to cross the Forth bridge.
Ultimately, it comes down to what is stated in the Eddington report. Rod Eddington is no great friend of the environment movement, but he has stated:
"Climate change demands a different policy context for transport decisions: prices must reflect the true costs to the environment"
and to society. That is what it comes down to. We need a sensible system of demand management and we must build better public transport. We must end the idea that we can build our way out of congestion and we must reject the Tory nonsense about being able to tackle congestion without demand management. I urge members to support the amendment in my name.
When the great Mahatma Gandhi visited Britain in the 1930s, a journalist asked him what he thought of western civilization. He replied that he thought that it would be a very good idea. I feel the same about an integrated transport system. It would be a very good idea.
Honestly, no party can yet claim to have developed a mix or balance of transport policies that includes, crucially, a role for the private car. The public will never accept any national transport strategy that does not include a role for the private car.
The Greens and their pressure group friends are anti-car, although certain rural-based Green MSPs—realistically, but perhaps hypocritically—sometimes use cars. In fact, the Greens are against all roads. That is bad news for buses and for the vans and lorries that service most of our economy.
I have just made a speech in favour of a sensible system of road pricing, so how can Charlie Gordon say that I am against roads?
Listen and you will learn.
It is true that, unlike railway passengers, motorists in the UK do not pay the full economic costs of their road use if we factor in the costs of congestion, pollution and accidents. Technical innovation could mitigate traffic emissions, but traffic congestion is a different challenge. That is the main focus of today's debate.
However, we need to keep congestion in perspective. Apart from known pinch points such as the Forth road bridge, congestion in Scotland is mainly an urban problem. Even then, 60 per cent of commuter journeys every morning into central Glasgow are by public transport. That is what happens even under the unregulated system that the Tories left us with.
Untrammelled car commuting into city centres is unsustainable, so the urban dimension of tackling traffic congestion requires a range of responses. We need to encourage people to work from home, to walk, cycle or take public transport to work or to park and ride to work. We can also regulate the price of city-centre parking, which is the main demand management tool that is used by Glasgow City Council. Of course, local authorities also have the power, which Parliament granted under the Transport (Scotland) Act 2001, to introduce congestion charges. That approach was tried by the City of Edinburgh Council.
In my view, Glasgow City Council is right to set its face against congestion charging. The city is served by the UK's second-largest public transport system. The price of parking in the city centre allows servicing of offices and shops while the all-day parker—that is, the car commuter—is priced out. Glasgow has a motorway through its centre, so a purely local scheme of congestion charging is pointless. In addition, a Glasgow congestion charge would give a competitive advantage to out-of-town shopping malls, which offer free car parks.
Most of the components of an integrated transport system are actually to hand in Scotland. Most important, there is an on-going commitment to investment in public transport by the Labour-led Executive. Spending on transport has increased to £1.6 billion from its very low base of £300 million, although I accept that we need more investment.
We can get there if we benchmark ourselves against best practice elsewhere. Since 1990, I have looked at traffic and transport systems in some 40 cities in Europe and North America. None of them had a congestion charge, but they all had world-class public transport systems. The best of them had ring roads to keep through-traffic out of the city centre. That is what the completion of the M74 will do for Glasgow and it will also fulfil national objectives. That is why we will not negotiate its cancellation under any circumstances.
We have had a very enjoyable debate this morning. It is clear that members have engaged with the subject not merely in a light-hearted way but with some seriousness.
It is a great pity that Mr Gordon's very sensible speech is unlikely to be appreciated by the current leadership in his party. He gave a sensible analysis of the situation as we find it today and of what realistically we need to do if we are to solve some of the problems. On ring roads, I agree with him that the Greens do a great disservice to themselves and to the electorate by their absolute opposition to any kind of new road building.
They propose a horse-and-cart economy.
Indeed. We cannot ignore the fact that the internal combustion engine exists and that people have the right to choose to use it.
Where we have difficulties is with managing demand. Demand management is a nicer way of referring to road user pricing, road user charging and road tolls, levies or taxes. Currently, motoring is probably more heavily taxed in the UK than it is anywhere else in Europe. That is perhaps why, as Mr Rumbles so eloquently put it, there is no trust in the Labour Government. The Government has used a series of such indirect taxes—stealth taxes—to finance its plans.
Does the member agree that the debate on congestion pricing was perhaps started about 10 years ago when Alex Salmond criticised the Government by saying:
"If they had any imagination, the Government would think carefully about congestion pricing".—[Official Report, House of Commons, 23 January 1995; Vol 253, c 101.]?
We all need to think about how we deal with congestion. If the only solution to congestion is to regulate demand through pricing, we are in considerable difficulty. We will never persuade the public that we are serious about tackling congestion and that we are not just adding more taxes. The problem with the way in which the debate has been conducted at national level is that people no longer trust the Government because there has been a heavy shift towards indirect taxes, especially motoring taxes. That has happened especially during the time since Mr Salmond made that point. As my colleague Christine Grahame rightly said, in recent times fuel duty has risen, as a percentage of the overall cost, from the low 70s to the low 80s.
The SNP has suggested a number of measures that can be taken now that involve greater commitment to public transport. We have taken the hard decisions on the capital investments that need to be made to encourage improvements in our public transport system. In particular, we believe that we need significant investment in Waverley station. Phase 2 at Waverley is absolutely crucial for ensuring that we can provide the trains to which our Green friends referred. If more people are to be able to get access to Edinburgh and Dundee from Fife, we can provide that only by increasing the number of paths that are available so that we have a genuine increase in the provision of public transport.
The amendment in the name of Fergus Ewing offers a sensible approach, which I will support at 5 o'clock.
The executive director of the RAC Foundation for Motoring wrote the other day:
"Parliament is right to debate road pricing. Our research shows that motorists accept the principle that it could be fairer to pay for the roads according to the amount of time spent driving in congestion rather than the current system of taxing fuel and vehicle ownership. But the government needs to change the way the debate is presented."
In fairness, the reference is to the United Kingdom Parliament, but we should have no less a debate here in the Scottish Parliament.
I thank those members—notably Charlie Gordon and, in fairness, Brian Adam—who have entered today's debate with a positive spirit. The only party that has not been up for the debate is the Conservative party, because, as Mark Ruskell rightly said, it simply wants to jump on an anti-toll bandwagon. However, I will point out its hypocrisy in a moment, when I quote what all its spokesmen have said on the subject.
Mr Ewing pointed out a number of alternatives to our scheme, which I thought were rather modest. However, I thank him for his praise of First ScotRail, which I will be sure to pass on. Mr Ewing makes the right decision about transport choices in taking the train to Glasgow. Of course, under the Liberal Democrat-Labour Government, the number of rail passengers has risen by 28 per cent, and investment in rail has been and will continue to be considerable.
Does the minister agree that the problem is that unless we go ahead with phase 2 of the Waverley improvements, which the Executive used to support, we will not see the increase in the hourly paths maximum from 28 to 32 that is essential if we are to have expansion, more rail routes and more frequent routes in the next decade?
I strongly believe in expansion, as Mr Ewing knows. The strategic projects review gives us the opportunity to consider those issues carefully—Mr Ewing shakes his head, but it does—and it will happen, because of the timing issues. We have been over those issues in recent times and I am sure that we will go over them again.
Jeremy Purvis quoted Alex Salmond from 1995. The point is that, since 1995, congestion has got worse, our climate change challenges have increased and petrol prices have risen, mostly because of the Tory fuel tax escalator—that is why Alex Salmond was right in 1995.
I want to ensure that I quote Mr Ewing accurately, when he said in The Herald on 20 February that road pricing was "plainly a possible system". I agree with Mr Ewing, so I hope that we can have a reasoned cross-party debate.
Christine Grahame made a good knockabout speech that was great fun, but I will make two points about it. First, the SNP, and Christine Grahame in particular, are against the Edinburgh airport rail link, so she would deny the people whom she represents in Edinburgh and the Borders the opportunity to get to Edinburgh airport by train.
Will the minister give way?
No. Those of us who have argued strongly for EARL believe that it will be a great improvement for Scotland. Although the SNP used to support the proposal, it is now against it. We will take no lectures from Christine Grahame about that.
My other point—
We support a rail link to the airport, but not the Executive scheme.
Stewart Stevenson has not been here for the debate, so why does he not be quiet?
Rightly and fairly, the First Minister is asked every week about matters that are the responsibility of his Government, but the SNP also asks about matters that are not his responsibility. The suggestion that I cannot have a view about powers for this Parliament is absolutely ridiculous.
I say to the Tories that they should be careful what they say about e-mails and petitions. I am grateful to The Sun newspaper for the following quotes. Quite fairly, that paper has been keen to ensure that my e-mail address is in the public domain rather more than it might have been otherwise. I received two messages from a gentleman called Frank—it would not be fair to give his e-mail address, although I have it here. In his first message, on 20 February, he said:
"Hopefully the whole country will see that it's another tax-raising idea—as if we haven't been taxed enough."
He e-mailed me back the very next day to say:
"Apologies for my email yesterday, I take back everything I've said. I based my opinion on a biased media article."
Come on, the Tories, we need to get some real analysis into the debate.
Will the minister give way?
I will come to Murdo Fraser in a minute. Many members, including Charlie Gordon and Mark Ruskell, referred to some real analysis, but let me deal with the Tories. I thought that there was a bit of back-bench Tory rebellion on the matter—Annabel Goldie kept her head down, but David McLetchie ripped up Murdo Fraser's policy.
It is important to examine the views of David Cameron, to whom Bristow Muldoon rightly referred, Chris Grayling, George Osborne and, of course, the deputy leader of the Scottish Tories. I will put their words firmly on the record. Let me start with the former Prime Minister John Major, who I note represented his party last night as Margaret Thatcher's bronze plaque was unveiled in the members lobby in the House of Commons.
It was a statue.
I do apologise—it was a statue. How could I have made that mistake?
John Major said in 1994:
"I do not expect to have people dancing in the streets in delight at the concept of road pricing but if you look at the environmental problems, you can see the impetus behind the policy and the necessity."
Chris Grayling said just a couple of months ago:
"I do think that an element of road pricing and the increased use of road charges will be a part of the strategy of any future Government".—[Official Report, House of Commons, 5 December 2006; Vol 454, c 223.]
I liked the other Chris Grayling quote from 6 April last year:
"I've said very clearly I regard Conservative transport strategy for the next three years as being pretty much a blank sheet of paper."
Murdo Fraser has rewritten that strategy.
Can we just get some clarity here—is it or is it not the policy of the Scottish Executive that we need to make road pricing happen more quickly in Scotland than in the rest of the UK? Yes or no?
No, it is not. As I said at the outset of the debate, and as I repeat now, road pricing can work only if there are alternatives and not just increasing motoring taxation. I thought that I made that position absolutely clear at the start of the debate. I have made it clear again now.
Murdo Fraser had a good try at deflecting me from Tory quotes, which is fair enough. I have a quote from David Cameron, who Bristow Muldoon mentioned, but I will finish with Murdo Fraser. I apologised for my intervention on his speech a couple of weeks ago—[Interruption.] We will be interested to listen to his speech in a moment. He said:
"If the minister had listened to my speech, he would have heard me saying that we support national road pricing in principle."—[Official Report, 8 February 2007; c 31913.]
Let us have clarity now about the Tories' and Murdo Fraser's toll tax.
The background to this debate, as we know, is the 1.8 million objections on the Downing Street website to the road pricing scheme proposed by number 10 and Douglas Alexander.
We lodged the motion for this morning's debate in the hope that we would get some detail from the Minister for Transport, Tavish Scott, and the Liberal Democrats, in the form of Mr Rumbles, on exactly what they propose, but not a word of detail did we hear. Even when I challenged Mike Rumbles with a simple question about the cost of the proposed scheme and how it would be implemented, he could not answer. Mr Rumbles said that people were queueing up behind the Liberal Democrat scheme. If he had only looked over his shoulder at the Labour benches, he would not have seen a single person nodding in support of what he had to say.
Is the member aware that, according to a BBC poll, 53 per cent of the British public support the Liberal Democrat position? We have to address the issue, which has to be revenue neutral. The proposed scheme is well supported.
As the RAC Foundation for Motoring poll found, nobody believes the Government when it says that the scheme will be revenue neutral, and I do not think that we can trust what the Liberal Democrats say on the matter.
As Christine Grahame said in an eloquent contribution, like the rest of the country, Labour members are fed up with the duplicity of the Liberal Democrats. They are pro bridge tolls in Edinburgh and anti bridge tolls in Dunfermline. Despite this debate, we are none the wiser about whether we are talking about a Liberal Democrat or a Scottish Executive proposal.
Will Mr Fraser give way?
I will make some progress and then give way. Tavish Scott said about road charging in an interview published on 7 February:
"We need to make it happen more quickly in Scotland".
On 13 February, a Scottish Executive spokesman told that fine organ, the Daily Mail:
"The Transport Minister is in favour of the introduction of road user charging as a way of combating congestion. This should be done as part of a UK approach."
Then, on 15 February, Annabel Goldie challenged Jack McConnell at First Minister's question time about whether it was the official policy of the Lib-Lab pact to make road charging happen more quickly in Scotland. The First Minister said no.
Will the member give way?
I will give way in a second. Now, we see the minister's amendment, on behalf of the Executive, the end of which states that the Executive
"believes that the potential benefits of all new measures to tackle congestion, such as road user charging, need to be fully assessed, tested and evaluated in order to keep Scotland moving."
What is the policy?
When looking at the timing of such issues, it is important that Mr Fraser reads out the full quotes, which, as usual, he did not. If he believes what he reads in the Daily Mail, he is a better man than I am.
Oh!
I do not read the Daily Mail, so if that is what it said, that is what it said.
I set out our position at the beginning of the debate and in response to an intervention from Mr Fraser. However, we now need some clarity from the Tories. Does Murdo Fraser support David McLetchie's position or not?
Mr Scott cannot get away with denigrating a fine publication such as the Daily Mail. I was simply quoting what an Executive spokesman told the newspaper, not the spin that it might have put on such a statement.
We know that the amendment is simply a fudge to protect the Executive, as does everyone else. Indeed, it is perfectly clear from the demeanour of the Labour members sitting behind the minister that they know it too.
Despite the denials, we have learned this morning that Tavish Scott wants Scotland to go it alone. Such a proposal is ludicrous, because it would require the devolution of fuel duty and road tax to Scotland and the implementation of border controls to prevent people from down south from driving to Scotland to fill up on duty-free petrol. It would turn Gretna into the biggest petrol station in Europe.
I want to deal with the issue that has been exercising the Liberal Democrat members all morning: my own party's position on the matter. We have never said that, in principle, we would oppose an affordable and workable national road pricing scheme. However, as David Cameron, Chris Grayling and I have said all along, none of the current road pricing proposals is acceptable or workable. We simply cannot go down that road at this stage—unlike the Liberal Democrats, who, despite the fact that Tavish Scott's proposals do not meet any of the criteria, are determined to push ahead with the policy.
We do not support tolls, because they are a regressive tax and, despite what Mike Rumbles says, they are not revenue neutral. They would involve huge set-up costs that would have to be paid for. If there was a resulting fall in the tax take and therefore in income to the Exchequer, the motorist would have to pay higher costs.
In fact, no one believes the Government's claim that such tolls are revenue neutral. For example, in its poll, the RAC Foundation for Motoring asked the simple question:
"Research has found that the majority of motorists would support tolls on 10% of the most congested roads provided that there was a reduction in fuel duty. How confident are you that the Government would stick to this promise?"
Zero per cent of respondents said that they were "Very confident", 16 per cent were "Fairly confident", 49 per cent were "Not very confident" and 35 per cent were "Not at all confident". That means that 84 per cent of respondents did not believe that tolls would be revenue neutral, because they cannot trust Governments north or south of the border.
As for the SNP, it has made a massive U-turn this morning. After all, it supported part 3 of the Transport (Scotland) Bill in 2000. Mr Ewing might well smile at that—he knows that I am right to highlight this issue, because Bruce Crawford attacked us for opposing part 3. However, there is more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over all the other righteous persons, and I am delighted that Mr Ewing, who is blushing manfully on the SNP front bench, now accepts that we were right. I welcome the SNP's conversion to the stance that we have always taken against local congestion charges.
Tavish Scott's proposal is unworkable in practice and undesirable in principle. No one believes that it would be anything other than an additional tax on motorists. The public can show its support for our stance on this issue by visiting our website www.scotlandsaysnototolls.com and joining the thousands of others who have already signed up. Tonight, the Parliament can vote to kick out Mr Scott's ludicrous proposal and consign Tavish's tolls to history.