Vehicle Excise Duty (V.E.D.), aka The Tax Disc or Road Tax

As a Member of Parliament I would attempt to introduce change regarding the payment of V.E.D., by bringing about the transfer of the payment of road tax from the tax disc to petrol, specifically by raising fuel prices by 11% and, whilst retaining the annual production of ownership, insurance and M.O.T. certificates to obtain a road licence for a vehicle, abolishing the annual payment.


Vehicle Excise Duty, or 'Road Tax' as it commonly called, is unfair, and the huge majority of people can see the obvious benefits of abolishing it, and recouping lost revenue by putting it on petrol. By doing this several benefits would accrue.

If we were to transfer VED onto fuel the following figures might apply to the UK. (Figures from the Department of Transport and are for 2007)

Motorists currently pay £5,220,000,000 V.E.D.
They Consume 42,810,000 Tonnes of fuel
i.e. about 50,601,420,000 Litres of fuel (1 tonne = c. 1,300 litres)
If V.E.D. was placed on fuel10.32 Pence per litre would recoup current revenue


Personal calculator

fill in your details and you will see what happens to your if VED payment were replaced by 11p per litre on fuel.

VED/Petrol weekly cost calculator
Current annual VED£
Current cost of a litre of petrol  p
Current spend per week on petrol£
Current weekly spend on fuel & VED£
New weekly spend with 11% on fuel and no VED£
If VED was put on petrol your weekly profit would be£

Quite simply, not only would such a system be so much fairer, by placing the cost of motor use closer to "The point of entry" (i.e. "pay as you go") there would be a reduction in motor use. No single measure taken by UK politcians in the last 15 years has had such a beneficial effect as this would yield regarding the environment, social parity and for so little cost.


How simple is that?