Roads: Long and Heavy Vehicles

Lord Davies of Oldham Excerpts

Wednesday 1st December 2010 Lords Chamber

[Earl Attlee]

My Lords, the noble Lord makes an important point. The damage to the road goes up in proportion to the fourth power of the axle weight, but we have no intention of altering the permitted axle weights either. However, the type of vehicle we are looking at will require different axle arrangements on the rear of the vehicle.

[Lord Davies of Oldham]

My Lords, I quite appreciate the Minister approaching this issue with some care, because he will know the anxieties of the general public about the questions over the damage which heavy lorries do to our roads and the pollution that they create. However, is there any reason why he should delay the charging of heavy goods vehicles, given that at present he is all too well aware of the unfairness of foreign lorries coming into this country and using our roads without cost?

[Earl Attlee]

My Lords, we discussed lorry road-user charging recently at Question Time. We are working on it and will announce on it in due course.