Feb 24 2007
A few answers
Yes, it would be sensible to turn VED into road pricing if you want to go that way - so we don’t pay twice, and we strengthen the pay as you drive part of vehicle tax.
Yes, I do want to see prosperity and business spread out better around the country. The reason why London and the south east contribute so much more and the rest of the country receives money from taxation is that London and south-east have so much more enterprise and business, with many more better paid jobs. it will require different atitudes by plannning authorities to new building and roads in the less favoured
RSS Feed
John Redwood has been the Member of Parliament for Wokingham since 1987. First attending Kent College, Canterbury, he graduated from Magdalen College...
Scrap the minimum wage. It makes no economic sense and penalises poorer regions. Why build a business in the north when staff costs are the same as in the south-east?
Why not simply convert VED into additional fuel tax? The “evil” targetted is carbon emission, not travel. If someone has a powerful or heavy car, they will use more fuel. Incentivising them to use less (by buying a motorbike, smaller car or whatever) makes sense. Fuel tax does that very simply.
Why spend
One of the causes of regional disparity is the lack of local decision making. So much is now decided in Whitehall that local councils can’t make decisions based on local situations. Business rates and planning policy should be decided locally not by central government. Then we need to sort out our education system by bringing back selection and choice.
JR: “it would be possible to have low tax/regulation zones in the parts of the country needing more enterprise to kick start it.”
Really, you do suprise me. Would the EU permit the british administration to vary the VAT rate in one part of the country, or the capital gains tax or the buisness rate? If it is so easy to vary the tax rate, why hasn’t the Scotish parliament varied income tax rate in Scotland ever in the last 10 years? Remember as part of the devolution settlement? they have the authority to vary income tax by +/- 3%.
I come here everyday because I think that you have important things to say. Some days you make my blood boil and on others you hit the nail on the head.
Pay as you drive is what we need providing the charge also covers insurance and the tax is removed from fuel.
I’m in a two car household. My wife’s car is a small estate provided by her company and replaced every three years and she drives 11000 miles per year. My own is a VED exempt 40 year old Land Rover that in my three years of ownership has averaged less than 1000 mile per year. Before that I drove a 70 year old Morris.
I’d probably pay slightly more but at least I wouldn’t be compensting for those who don’t bother insur.ing
On your second point, I hear this chicken and egg situation all of the time at the Council, if only we train children better the businesses would come, if only… Perhaps if our Northern children can see the point to hours and hours of study with jobs to aim for in their local area they won’t waste so much of their time, this is why I was so pleased to hear that the BBC was coming to Manchester. Instead of asking teens what jobs they’d like to do and leaving it at that, I believe they should be told if you for example, want to be a mechanic you need to do this, then this and then this. Many children don’t have parents that can guide them into careers that they know nothing about so they limit themselves.
However, when you read that a home based mother with five children and no partner or an out of work husband can obtain the equivalent benefits of a family earning