A lack of mention in yesterday’s Budget to any future plans for road pricing has been branded as “dismaying” by the fleet sector, which says action is needed.

The Spring Budget was devoid of any reference to road pricing plans

While experts have been saying for years that the Government must start tackling a £35bn ‘fiscal black hole’ in VED and fuel duty from the switch to electric vehicles, the Spring Budget was devoid of any reference to plans.

That’s despite expectations going back to before last year’s Autumn Statement that a full consultation and review process into the feasibility of road pricing would be announced.

Earlier this month, MPs on the Transport Committee slammed the Treasury for its inertia on tackling road pricing. A report by the Committee in February 2022 said the UK “faces an under-resourced and congested future unless the Government acts urgently to reform motoring taxation”. MPs on the Committee called for the Government to have “an honest conversation with the public” about the future of road pricing.

But a recent exchange of letters between committee chair Iain Stewart MP and Treasury ministers regarding the report revealed the Treasury’s main message was that the Government “does not currently have plans to consider road pricing”.

LeasePlan’s Matthew Walters, head of consultancy services and customer value, has said that the Chancellor faces quite a predicament.

“In the years ahead, the welcome transition to EVs will cost him and his successors £billions in lost fuel duty revenues.

“There has been much speculation that he’d respond to this situation by moving towards another form of motoring taxation. But the long-expected consultation into the feasibility of road pricing still hasn’t materialised – not even in the Budget.

“This is dismaying for two reasons. The first: if the biggest shake-up of motoring taxation in generations is going to happen ahead of 2030 – as it surely must – then it will need years of careful development and implementation. There is no real cause to delay that process now.”

He added: “The other reason is that there’s now an increasingly long list of legislation or potential legislation that we’re still waiting for – from the necessary detail on the ZEV Mandate for manufacturers to a new system of VED for vans. Fleets and motorists need clarity on these and other issues to properly plan for the future.”

AFP chair Paul Hollick has also said this was a Budget more noteworthy for what it didn’t include for fleets rather than what it did.

“We’d have liked to have seen measures announced ranging from the creation of an EV charging regulator through to national co-ordination on Clean Air Zones, as outlined in our recent tax and regulation manifesto. However, there was little content that showed the Government has been thinking about business road transport.”