beardy wrote:I guess the point of a name change is that once it is for roads instead of environment, you can then remove all those pricing bands based on emissions and charge new ones which reflect that a Prius uses as much road as a Porsche.
According to the Beeb, VED will still be banded on emissions, but since 95% of cars will pay £140 it may as well not be.
As someone pointed out, though not very obviously, there are separate budgets (at least in England) for trunk roads (Highways England) - which far from being all A-roads - and the rest, being much the greater part of roads, which are funded by local authorities (county or unitary level). Is this road fund going to be for trunk roads only? I can't see an answer.
It's a bit of a retrograde step. Generally road funds are urged on developing countries to try and get them to spend enough on roads. As countries mature, they usually become able to fund roads from central funds without the risk of spending too much on something else, and thus the restraints of hypothecation become less necessary.