Roads: Charging

Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe Excerpts

Tuesday 1st February 2011 Lords Chamber

[Earl Attlee]

My Lords, the principal authority for ensuring compliance with UK regulations is the Vehicle and Operator Services Agency. It may have a role in ensuring compliance with lorry road user charging, and it certainly has a role in ensuring that foreign goods vehicles comply with all our regulations.

[Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe]

Does the Minister agree that the most advanced and used system in Europe is the German one, which is not based on paper, or even on registration recognition, but on satellites; that that is the way forward; and that that is what the previous Government were exploring and it has been abandoned by the present Government? Will they not go back to look at the longer term and to try to get the best system for our country, not a halfway house measure?

[Earl Attlee]

My Lords, the satellite scheme was abandoned by the previous Government, not by this Government. They abandoned it because they spent £65 million on it and achieved nothing. It is also important to remember that our problems are different from the problems experienced by continental countries, which have a far higher proportion of foreign heavy goods vehicles operating on their territory.