The RAC has responded to the Chancellor’s Budget speech on motoring taxation and roads investment:
RAC head of external affairs Pete Williams: “This Budget for the most part is good news for the nation’s motorists. The Government made a commitment three years ago to ring-fence all the money collected from vehicle tax from 2020/21 to maintain and improve our most important roads. It is good to see the Chancellor delivering on this promise and it is clearly a big step in the right direction.
“While the focus of this cash injection is strategic and major roads it is also positive that other local roads will benefit to some extent – any additional funding to help fix our local road network is welcome. The condition and maintenance of local roads is motorists’ top concern according to research from the RAC Report on Motoring. However, £420m is likely to be a drop in the ocean when compared to the scale of the problems motorists face. Independent analysis suggests the cost to bring our local roads up to an acceptable standard is around £9.3bn. We have been calling on the Chancellor to take the opportunity to use this Budget to commit at least 2p a litre from existing fuel duty revenues as a dedicated fund for local roads improvement. This, together with existing sources of local roads investment, would have raised the required amount to fix our local roads over the next ten years.”
“We welcome the Chancellor’s decision not to increase Insurance Premium Tax. After three rises in the last three years, motorists can breathe a sigh of relief that they will not face a further tax hike on their car insurance costs. However, we would have liked to have seen recognition from the Chancellor about the role that telematics-based insurance policies can play in terms of safer driving, particularly among younger drivers. A cut in the rate of IPT for such policies would have encouraged the take-up and affordability of telematics policies and the proven benefits these offer of safer driving behaviours among young and new drivers – a missed opportunity from the Treasury. “