Road Pricing

Lord Spellar Excerpts

Thursday 18th September 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Livermore (Lab)]

I am grateful to the noble Lord for his question. I absolutely recognise the considerable expertise and experience that he has in this matter—experience and expertise that is probably found right across this House. I do not have specific thoughts on the specific points he raises because, as I say, we have no plans to introduce road pricing.

[Lord Spellar (Lab)]

My Lords, the last question identifies some of the key problems with road pricing. Mention was made of peak-time charging. That may be fine for civil servants and those living in London and the Home Counties, who have a high propensity to travel to work by rail, but the great majority of the rest of the country go to work by car. Those who live in rural areas have to travel long distances for facilities and for work. Those who work in industrial areas, again, quite often because of the location of the work, have to travel by car. There are huge socioeconomic issues here. Quite frankly, it needs to be taken out of the rarefied atmosphere of discussions between think tanks in Whitehall and instead have some common-sense examination involving car drivers.

[Lord Livermore (Lab)]

I am grateful to my noble friend for his question. I agree with a great deal of what he said. As I said at the outset, one of the objectives we must keep in mind is that motoring must remain affordable for consumers. As I say, that is why in the last Budget we extended the temporary 5p fuel cut and cancelled the planned increase in line with inflation, which saved drivers around £3 billion this year. It is why we are introducing a new fuel finder to increase competition between fuel stations and to help drive down prices. As my noble friend rightly says, a well-developed road network cuts transport costs, connects businesses to markets, and unlocks jobs and investment right across regions. That is why at the spending review the Chancellor announced £24 billion of capital funding over this Parliament to maintain and improve both motorways and local roads.

Budget: Taxes and Borrowing

Lord Spellar Excerpts

Monday 4th November 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Livermore (Lab)]

We had to take some very difficult decisions in the Budget. They were the right decisions to clear up the mess that we inherited from the party opposite, to rebuild the NHS after years of neglect, to choose investment and not decline, and to keep our promises to working people. However, the noble Baroness is absolutely right and of course I agree with what the Chancellor said. This was a very significant Budget, because of the need to repair the public finances and rebuild our public services simultaneously. We have now wiped the slate clean, meaning we never have to do a Budget like this again. The noble Baroness asks about tax, and I point out that we have kept every single promise that we made on tax. Her Government, when she was a Treasury Minister, froze income tax thresholds, costing working people nearly £30 billion. We could have extended that but we chose not to.

[Lord Spellar (Lab)]

My Lords, is it not the case that the last Government’s plans would have taken tax as a share of GDP to 37.1%? Even then, they subsequently announced, but failed to account for, billions of additional public spending while promising unrealistic tax cuts. Does my noble friend agree that last week’s Budget measures were necessary to fill the last Government’s black hole and get this country back on track?

[Lord Livermore (Lab)]

My noble friend is absolutely right in what he says. We faced a £22 billion black hole at the heart of our public finances, which we had to take steps to address. We also faced promises for compensation payments, which the previous Government had completely failed to put a single pound behind, and we had to repair public services simultaneously. In the process, though, we kept every single one of our manifesto commitments to restore stability, invest in our public services and protect working people.