HGV Road User Levy Bill

Lord Higgins Excerpts

Thursday 7th February 2013 Lords Chamber

[Earl Attlee]

My Lords, as I stated in my opening speech, this legislation will help to deliver a fairer deal for UK hauliers and go some way to correcting an inequality which has existed for too long. For this reason, I believe the Bill should be welcomed. Turning to the aims of the Bill, we consider our plan to charge £10 per day, or £1,000 per year, for the largest vehicles, to be fair, proportionate and compliant with the relevant EU legislation. One of the challenges in dealing with this problem is that anything we do must be compliant with EU legislation. We must treat UK and foreign hauliers in the same way.

The noble Lord, Lord Snape, asked about the implementation costs. The total set-up costs are estimated at between £3 million and £6.7 million, which will be spread over the years before the scheme goes live for foreign hauliers. Thereafter, we estimate the annual cost to be £3 million to £4.8 million. These estimates are at a relatively early stage and will be developed further.

The noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, asked whether there will be a vignette and whether there will be booths at Dover. There will be no vignette sticker, or booths at Dover or at any other port. The levy will be paid for by a website or telephone transaction, which will feed into a database that will be available publicly and to VOSA officials. Enforcement of the levy will be carried out primarily by VOSA officers, on a targeted basis, using the payment database to show which vehicles are in the country and which have—or have not—paid, alongside VOSA’s normal stopping process for enforcement.

Foreign heavy vehicles mainly travel on a strategic road network and therefore ordinary traffic wardens do not have a role in this. If they detect a vehicle without a vignette by chance, they can do something about it but, being realistic, a traffic warden will not be dealing with this problem. Using ANPR technology at both fixed and mobile sites, VOSA will be able to identify and stop vehicles that have not paid and hold them until a penalty deposit of £200 is paid. That is a penalty deposit and not an on-the-spot fine.

[Lord Higgins]

If the website shows that a particular vehicle has not paid the levy, will it be charged before it leaves this country, on the way out?

[Earl Attlee]

My Lords, if VOSA detects that a vehicle has not paid the levy, I suspect the vehicle will not be going very far—perhaps to the next service station—until it has paid it, which can be done electronically.