Member News
We examine some key highlights affecting transport policy, including reaction from ePolitix.com members.
• £200m investment in regional railways, including £80m to fund a link between Manchester stations and the Swindon-Kemble redoubling scheme.
• £100m to help councils repair winter potholes.
• Consulting to improve air passenger duty banding and seek to bring private jets into the duty regime. April’s APD rise to be delayed until 2012.
• New Fair Fuel Stabiliser to be introduced, funded by increasing the supplementary charge on North Sea oil and gas production from 20 per cent to 32 per cent from tomorrow.
• Fuel duty escalator will be cancelled for the rest of this parliament and inflation-link rises in duty postponed until 2012.
• Vehicle excise duty to increase in line with inflation, and frozen for heavy goods vehicles.
Member Response: Peter Box, chairman of the Economy and Transport Board, Local Government Association
It is good news the government has responded to the concerns of local authorities by agreeing to the LGA's request for extra money to fix potholes caused by unprecedented winter weather.
This extra £100 million - which comes on top of the additional £100 million announced in February - will help highways teams with the enormous challenge of tackling the £9.5 billion backlog in road repairs.
Even as council budgets are being cut, it is vital that highway maintenance is sufficiently funded over the coming years if we are to prevent roads from crumbling into disrepair.
Member Response: Simon Buck, chief executive, British Air Transport Association (BATA)
Two cheers for George Osborne for not increasing the tax on flying in the Budget but nil points for instituting an inflation linked increase, where none existed before, deferred to next April. Air passengers will pay £2.5 billion this year in Air Passenger Duty – far more than the assessed environmental cost of their journeys. This tax damages UK tourism and should be reduced to help boost Britain’s economic recovery.
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