Tax hire fear for families with older cars (From The Bolton News)

Tax hire fear for families with older cars

11:33am Thursday 5th June 2008 in

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FAMILIES in Bolton will find it even harder to cope with the cost of living because of Government plans to hike car taxes, a Tory candidate has warned.

Deborah Dunleavy, the Conservative Party's parliamentary candidate for Bolton North-east, says changes in the way vehicle excise duty is calculated will heap more misery on families already suffering from soaring fuel prices and energy bills.

The Government is proposing to charge owners of cars with engines above 1549cc and registered before 2001 an extra £15 in car tax next year.

And from 2010, drivers of all but the greenest and smallest cars will be charged between £5 and £255 extra a year.

The Treasury says the increases are a way of encouraging people to ditch their gas-guzzlers in favour of a smaller vehicle.

But critics say the plans - which would net the Government an extra £1 billion - are unfair because they punish owners of older cars who cannot afford to buy greener, newer models.

About six million cars bought before 2001 are on the roads and the tax bill for a family car such as a Ford Mondeo could leap from £210 to £310 a year.

Mrs Dunleavy described the increases as "another Gordon Brown stealth tax"

and said they do little to reduce carbon dioxide emissions from motoring.

She said: "At a time when families are feeling the pinch of the rising cost of living, the Government should scrap its plans for a big increase in road tax on family cars.

"This is yet another slap in the face for hard-working families in Bolton, on top of the 10p income tax hikes.

"The Government must execute a sharp U-turn. Any change in road tax should focus only on the most polluting vehicles and be offset by equivalent reductions in family taxes."

A delegation of rebel Labour MPs is meeting Chancellor Alistair Darling this week to voice concerns over backdating the increases.

The Conservatives' warning came as Brian Iddon, the Labour MP for Bolton South-east, said the future looked bleak for motorists.

Dr Iddon said: "I do not think we're going to see cheap fuel again quite frankly because of world demand.

"The general public is suffering from rising prices in food, oil and utilities but they are out of our control because they are subject to world commodity prices.

"Combating climate change by going green is going to be difficult because it does hit people in their pocket. That is why it is bruising people and the Government is getting the blame for everything."

Bolton North east MP David Crausby said: "I think it is quite right to apply green taxes to polluting cars but I have some doubts whether they should back date it seven years.

"It should be about discouraging people from buying polluting cars, not revenue raising.

"I agree people who buy more polluting cars should pay more car tax but it would be unfair to apply that to all existing cars.

"The sensible thing would be to do it from when the Government first announced it, which was last year."