16:52 Mrs. Louise Ellman (Liverpool, Riverside) (Lab/Co-op)

There is no doubt that road transport is critical to our economy. There are 34 million motor vehicles driving on 250,000 miles of road in Great Britain, and 67 per cent. of freight is carried by road, so it is not possible to consider transport policy properly without considering the great importance of roads. However, there are clear environmental consequences. The transport sector is responsible for 23 per cent. of the UK’s carbon dioxide emissions, and roads account for 93 per cent. of those. The Climate Change Act 2008 requires the Government to reduce CO 2 emissions by 80 per cent. by 2050. That means that very significant changes are required in the transport sector as a whole, and particularly in road transport. Those changes need to be very wide ranging, and must relate to issues such as new technology, alternative fuels, and investment in a much more integrated public transport system.

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18:32 The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Paul Clark)

There are always a number of schemes to be considered at any given time. We have introduced ours because we believe it will have the desired effect as part of our carbon reduction and climate change policies, and we will need to see how it works. I should say that VED raises some £5.6 billion annually.

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