A time to rethink Vehicle Excise Duty – the return to a lower overall blanket fee is overdue and fairer.

The Vehicle Excise Disc may have disappeared, but change to the system is needed

The welcome change back to a rolling 40 year VED exemption system by the last government was good news for our hobby, but why not adopt the French system of 25 years as a qualification where both the MOT and VED are exempt? The Road Traffic Act defines a vehicle over 25 years old as 'vintage.' Why do we not change to a fairer system of 25 years for nil MOT and VED?

When I was in the Police service, there was always this argument for doing away with the road fund licence disc and putting a bit extra on fuel cost. The Police argument was that a lack of valid disc displayed on a vehicle often hid things like no MOT, no insurance, which was a valid point.

But now that the requirement to not have to display a valid disc on the vehicle is the situation, we can look again at doing away with the duty or making it less costly to run a vehicle. We are stuck with having to use motorised transport as public transport is lacking unless you live in a town.

Indeed, when did you last see an 'F' prefix plate car on the road in daily use? Next time you are on the road, look around and see what the oldest car on the road is being driven. Likely it will be something from the late 1990's.

The MGB currently can be either exempt from VED or not

The anomaly is further compounded when you have a 1976 MGB that is currently tax exempt, yet a 1980 example, essentially the same car, has to pay £215 a year. Likely, the 1980 car is occasionally used like the 1976 car and may do less than 3000 miles a year, as might the 1976 one.

The current CO2 calculated VED rate scheme is unfair. It does not take into account the actual mileage covered annually, it is an ownership tax. So, by comparison a small car paying nil VED can do say 60,000 miles a year at no VED cost, yet a new Ford Mustang GT500 would pay likely £515 a year, £1520 if a first year registered car, yet it might only do 2000 miles a year, with the result of far less CO2 being output by the larger car, paying more because it might pollute more, but in real terms might not.

The real factor here is fuel usage and that is something that you pay for at the pump, the more fuel you use the more you pay in tax. There is no environmental argument for unfair VED when you look at aircraft, which pay nothing.

The Heathrow Expansion project will create more CO2

yet a Low Emission Zone for vehicles in the area is proposed

When it was suggested by a previous government to tax aircraft fuel, there was a hoo-hah about it and M.P.'s said that aircraft would avoid landing in the UK if they had to pay taxes and the lid was put on that suggestion quickly because it would have a financial penalty.

The recent Heathrow expansion will allow thousands more aircraft take-off and landing movements in the Heathrow airport area, which is ALREADY the UK's largest single source of pollution.

You couldn't make it up, but as a sop to the increased aircraft traffic, Transport for London (TFL) proposes a new low emission zone, in this same area, which applies to road vehicles only. Not aircraft, the main polluters.

Low Emission Zones - it has to be fair to all users

Lets do some maths shall we? A large airliner fully loaded can use up to 7 tons of fuel per take off. That's 1568 gallons, at 10lb to the gallon weight.

Now, your average MGB could at say 25mpg use that amount of fuel to travel 39,200 miles, which as a limited use classic, may give you ten years worth of travel.

The problem we have is that many of our classic cars such as the MGF and MGTF unfairly fall into the full tax bracket, although most of these are not in daily or high mileage use.

In which case, a half way compromise would be to peg any vehicle 15 years or more older to say £100 a year VED until it reaches the nil duty historic threshold, which I believe should be changed to a rolling 25 years entitlement from the current 40, as it effects relatively few vehicles from the 32 million or so currently on the road.

With the more fuel you use the more tax you pay, the VED should be set at a blanket £100 a year for other cars not currently CO2 level exempt. As all vehicles are banded by CO2 output on the DVLA system, it would be a simple matter to administer. The more you pollute, the more fuel you use and tax you pay, it is that simple. Or is that too simple?

Using the Heathrow pollution example, the argument for taxing vehicles for climate change reasons is fatuous and indeed unfair, when massive polluters do not pay.