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Road Pricing

: I certainly accept that we have to discuss such remissions. We must have an open mind. I would not rule them out at all. Let us not forget that, under the existing system, those essential car users already make a significant contribution through fuel duties, vehicle excise duty and the tax they paid when they purchased their car. How we deal with the shift in taxation from the existing system to the new system is not a matter for me. It will be a matter for the Chancellor. Other than my late mother, I do not think that anyone has ever suggested that I am in the running to be the Chancellor. These will be complex issues that have to be grappled with. Remission is certainly a problem. I recently had discussions with representatives of the disabled driving lobby. They told me that we would get no support from them unless we told them that they would not pay any road charges. My immediate response was that they were already paying road charges, so were they saying that they should pay less in road charges in future? Were they demanding complete exemption, or do we need to look for a system where they pay a standard road price rather than a variable road price? During that debate, the leading spokesman admitted that he makes a journey on a reasonably regular basis which takes him from just outside the congestion charging zone to another place just outside the congestion charging zone. If he went around the zone it would add only an extra three or four minutes to his journey, but because he has complete exemption from the congestion charge, he always goes straight through. He admitted that that was not an appropriate way to behave because he knew that the zone was there to eliminate congestion, which he was causing as much as anyone. He was prepared to engage with me and admitted that the issue is not as simple as complete remission of charges for everyone. Those are complexities that we must debate. I can give the hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings and anyone in the essential car-user groups an absolute promise that we are completely prepared to engage with them and discuss how we would tackle the matter through the pilot schemes and any subsequent national scheme that we might ultimately introduce. Finally, I wish to comment on the assertion of the hon. Member for Southport (Dr. Pugh) that there were two questions to answer: one about the environment and pollution, and the other on congestion. I do not agree. The question that we must address is that of congestion. Environmental issues might be solvable by other means such as clean engines or incentives to use cleaner cars. We have just introduced the 5 per cent. renewable transport fuel obligation, which is one way we can begin to deal with greenhouse gas. It may be that once we have designed a perfect system that can deal with the complexities of congestion—we have identified how difficult that alone will be—there will be an obvious way to tweak it, so that it also brings environmental benefits. However, we must first concentrate on the big question of congestion, which is quite complicated enough. Let us not be tempted to get into a debate about a tax on gas guzzlers or other polluting vehicles. Let us deal with the difficult enough questions about how we resolve congestion. I shall finish where I started by repeating that the Government do not have a plan. We have set out our objectives and, shortly, we will outline how we intend to start groping towards a solution through pilot schemes. We are completely open-minded about technology and the other issues and problems that hon. Members have raised. We are very happy to engage with anyone and everyone including motorists' groups, people who represent transport interests and other political parties. We are happy to engage in that debate because we wish to reach consensus. No decisions have yet been made about how the matter will ultimately be resolved. We acknowledge the complexity of the issues, but we are starting to gain some clarity about the way forward. Shortly, I hope that we shall be announcing who will participate in the first wave of transport innovation projects, and we shall look for scope for further pilots. At this stage, everything is up for grabs. I and the Secretary of State honestly wish to solve the problem with help from across as wide a spectrum of opinion as possible.