Labour’s eco-war on drivers: Jeremy Corbyn’s plan to force a 60 per cent drop in motorists’ mileage with tax hikes and lower speed limits to hit emissions target
- Tories claimed that Labour’s plans meant hikes in fuel duty and road pricing
- They also accused Mr Corbyn of planning to cut motorway speed limits
- Labour’s net 2030 policy has also been criticised as ‘unachievable’ by unions
Labour would hit motorists with a ‘barrage’ of tax hikes in a bid to slash the number of miles they drive and meet environmental targets, the Tories claimed last night.
Official Labour documents suggest the number of miles driven would have to be cut by up to 60 per cent to hit the party’s target of cutting carbon emissions to ‘net zero’ in little over a decade’s time.
The document proposes ‘demand management’ to force a ‘large and rapid’ drop in car use.
Last night the Tories claimed that Labour’s plans would have to mean vast increases in taxes on motorists, including hikes in fuel duty and road pricing.
Jeremy Corbyn (pictured in Doncaster last night) would hit motorists with a ‘barrage’ of tax hikes in a bid to slash the number of miles they drive and meet environmental targets, the Tories claimed last night
They also accused Mr Corbyn of planning to cut motorway speed limits and to stop building roads in order to slash emissions to net zero by 2030.
A Labour ‘expert briefing’ report published last month suggested that hitting the 2030 emissions target would require a ‘mileage reduction’ of at least 20 per cent and up to 60 per cent and a shift away from private vehicles towards public transport use.
Conservative Transport Secretary Grant Shapps warned Labour was planning a ‘war on the motorist’ and ‘extreme economic policies’.
‘It is now clear that Labour have secret plans to clobber hard-working people with a barrage of tax hikes on their family car, that would leave families with less money in their pockets,’ he said.
‘Labour’s extreme economic policies would a disaster for drivers, and everyone would pay the price in higher taxes, fewer jobs and less money for public services.
‘To add insult to injury, badly-needed road improvements to cut congestion and speed up traffic will be axed.
Corbyn is coming for your car and will exhume the last Labour Government’s war on the motorist.’
Mr Shapps said the Tory target of hitting ‘net zero’ by 2050 would allow time for a gradual shift to greener technologies that do not dramatically increase the cost of living.
Labour’s report references a separate document commissioned by Friends of the Earth, which said reducing mileage by 60 per cent would need increases in fuel duty and road pricing.
It also proposed cutting motorway speed limits below 70mph and the cancellation of all new road schemes.
Labour’s net 2030 policy has also been criticised as ‘unachievable’ by its own trade union supporters, who have warned it would mean petrol cars being ‘confiscated’.
The GMB union said the target ‘threatens whole communities’ and would mean families taking ‘only one flight every five years’.
The union’s leader, Tim Roache, wrote: ‘We believe it would mean within the next decade a series of measures such as the confiscation of petrol cars….it will put entire industries and the jobs they produced in peril.’
The Tories are expected to promise that the fuel duty freeze will continue for the next five years.
A Labour spokesman said: ‘Labour will usher in an electric car revolution.
‘We will provide interest free loans for 2.5 million people to upgrade their vehicles, introduce a scrappage scheme for old cars, protect the 186,000 workers in the automotive sector that has been under siege from Tory mismanagement of the economy, kickstart a mammoth rollout of the UK’s electric vehicle charging network and set up community car sharing clubs so that everyone can benefit.
‘All the Tories have to offer is green number plates.’