Vehicle Taxation Reform

Felicity Buchan Excerpts

Wednesday 19th October 2022 Westminster Hall

[The Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury (Felicity Buchan)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir George, on my first outing as a Treasury Minister in Westminster Hall. I will begin by congratulating the hon. Member for Bath (Wera Hobhouse) and thanking her for securing this important debate on vehicle taxation. As today’s discussion has demonstrated, it is a highly topical issue.

These taxes bring in some £35.5 billion to the Exchequer every year—money that is essential to fund high quality public services. That sum is worth about 4.3% of our total tax take, so it is critical. As the hon. Member for Bath said, the taxes have a crucial role to play in our transition to net zero, to which this Government are absolutely committed. Vehicle taxation and its future are a matter of great public interest. Road vehicles in Great Britain covered almost 300 billion miles in 2021, underscoring our need to maintain high-quality infrastructure while minimising emissions. As we transition to net zero, it is vital that we also consider how we continue to pay for our roads, as well as our schools, hospitals and armed forces.

Let me begin to outline the background by exploring the present system of vehicle taxation. We have two main vehicle taxes in this country: fuel duty and vehicle excise duty. Fuel duty is currently the largest yielding excise regime, raising £26 billion in 2021-22. Vehicle excise duty, or road tax as it is sometimes known, is worth a further £7 billion a year. Altogether, those revenues equate to just under 40% of the total education budget for this entire financial year, as we have an Education Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent North (Jonathan Gullis), present in the Chamber.

We also have other smaller taxes, most notably company car tax, which raises some £2.5 billion a year. That tax applies when a car is made available to an employee for private purposes, since that represents a taxable non-cash benefit. The funds raised from all those taxes contribute to both road maintenance and the resourcing of other vital public services. The Government have refined those taxes both to help families and businesses navigate cost of living pressures and to support our net zero ambitions.

At spring statement 2022, the Government announced a temporary 12-month cut of 5p to fuel duty on petrol and diesel, worth £2.4 billion. That is the largest ever cash-terms cut to fuel duty. Perhaps I can use this opportunity to address a few points made by the hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Richard Foord). First, we asked the Competitions and Markets Authority to undertake an urgent review of the market for road fuel. Its findings suggest that the fuel duty cut was largely passed through, but Government have asked it to do a fuller market study on the supply of road fuel, and Government will react to those conclusions.

I draw the hon. Member’s attention to the rural fuel duty relief scheme, which gives support to motorists by compensating fuel retailers in some select rural areas that meet certain criteria. If they qualify, there is a 5p per litre reduction for the retailers. We have also adapted those taxes to incentivise take-up of electric vehicles. Road transport accounts for a massive 24% of UK carbon emissions, so reducing those emissions is essential to the UK’s transition to net zero.

Industry statistics suggest that more than 1 million battery and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles are now registered in the UK, which is a huge success, but we need to go further and faster. To support that, we will introduce a ZEV mandate in 2024, and end the sale of petrol and diesel-powered vehicles by 2030 and of hybrid vehicles by 2035. At that point, all vehicles sold will be zero emission. In all, the Government have committed £2.5 billion since 2020 to support the transition to electric vehicles, with targeted funding to offset the higher up-front costs and to accelerate the roll-out of charge point infrastructure. That includes £500 million to support local charge point provision, £950 million to support rapid charging on motorways and major A roads, and funding for charge points in homes and businesses.

In addition to those measures, the Government also use the vehicle tax system to incentivise the take-up of vehicles with lower carbon emissions. In 2017, the Government introduced a reformed vehicle excise duty system for new cars. Under that system, zero emission models pay nothing on first registration, while the most polluting pay more than £2,000. In subsequent years most cars move to a standard rate, currently set at £165 per year; meanwhile, zero emission vehicles pay nothing, either on first registration or subsequently. Company car tax, too, is adapted to the pursuit of net zero, and it has been effective in incentivising the uptake of electric vehicles and ultra-low emission vehicles. Company cars comprise a significant proportion of electric vehicles and ultra-low emission vehicles on the road today. Those cars will filter through to the second-hand market, increasing the supply of used electric vehicles and making the transition more affordable for consumers.

I will move on to the future of motoring taxes. I start by paying tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Bexhill and Battle (Huw Merriman) who, as Chair of the Transport Committee, has done a lot of work on that topic. As more road users switch to electric vehicles, tax receipts from fuel duty and vehicle excise duty will decrease if the present system remains unchanged. The net zero review indicates that tax receipts from fossil fuel-related activity will eventually trend towards zero. Revenue from fuel duty is projected to decline from 1.2% of GDP in the middle of the decade to 0.2% by the 2040s, and revenues from vehicle excise duty will also fall. The Government are committed to ensuring that revenue from vehicle taxes keeps pace with that change, with taxation simultaneously remaining affordable for consumers. That will ensure that we can continue to fund the public services and infrastructure that people and families across the UK expect. In considering how to replace those lost tax revenues, the Government will also consider the secondary impacts of existing vehicle taxes, not least in reducing road congestion.

[Wera Hobhouse]

Does the Minister agree that the principle of all new taxation has to be that we disincentivise people from using their cars and incentivise more use of public transport? Ultimately, that is the most sustainable way to go forward.

[Felicity Buchan]

I am sure the hon. Lady will recognise that we have a medium-term fiscal plan coming up in about 10 days, and at this stage we will not commit to anything ahead of that plan.

I conclude by thanking the hon. Member for Bath for the opportunity to have a fruitful discussion about vehicle taxation. We are all aware of how important the issue is, given the fact that motoring taxes account for 4.3% of total tax take and £35 billion—a significant sum. We are also all aware that our constituents have a strong interest in any changes to vehicle taxation. I welcome the widespread support that hon. Members have expressed for using vehicle taxation to facilitate our transition to net zero, and I am grateful that so many hon. Members appreciate the need to reform vehicle taxation to maintain tax receipts while achieving net zero. We will listen to our constituents and to hon. Members as we continue to refine vehicle taxation and adapt it to the Britain of net zero, economic growth and fiscal responsibility.

Question put and agreed to.