Lib Dems split on road tolls

A Liberal Democrat plan to introduce pay-as-you drive road tolls has been dismissed as a "poll tax on wheels" by one of the party's frontbench MPs.

Environment spokesman Martin Horwood said other parties would be able to level "unfair accusations" that the Lib Dems were trying to introduce "roads for the rich".

Horwood called for the section of the policy that contains a long-term commitment to introducing road pricing on motorways and trunk roads to be removed. 

He made his objections during a debate on the party's transport policy at the annual conference in Bournemouth on Tuesday.

He claimed that the policy could cost the party votes and create hotspots of congestion on smaller roads as people tried other routes to avoid the charges.

The road taxes would hit the poorest hardest and most people would be unable to avoid it, he added.

Horwood told the conference: "With any flat-rate tax, absolutely inevitably it hits the poorest pockets hardest."

"So does fuel duty of course, but two wrongs don't make a right.

He added: "Roads for the rich, poll tax on wheels - those would be unfair accusations but ones that would be easy for our opponents to make."

But Horwood's bid to have the commitment removed from the policy was rejected by delegates, as was an attempt to make the party adopt renationalisation of the railways.

Transport spokesman Norman Baker defended the road-pricing scheme, saying it would only be introduced where there were real public transport alternatives.

Baker argued that he wanted to create a "rail renaissance" alongside green policies that promote fairness.