Darling favours extending road charges to cars

Alistair Darling, the Secretary of State for Transport, gave his strongest backing yet for congestion charging to stop road traffic growth soaring in Britain's cities.

Mr Darling told The Independent that he may extend to cars a road-pricing scheme for hauliers due to take effect in four years. "I am not against it, because we are introducing it for lorries. So how could I be against it for anything else? What matters to me is: would it work?" he said.

Mr Darling has come under fire for not unequivocally backing the first local attempt to introduce a road charge. The Government's own transport adviser, David Begg, head of the Commission for Integrated Transport (CIT), has criticised the Government over its lukewarm stance on the Bill, which will go before Parliament tomorrow.

Professor Begg said measures allowing local authorities to impose road tolls to reduce traffic were introduced in the Transport Act 2000 and formed part of the 10-year transport plan. "The Government recognises that without charging they are going to find it impossible to hit their own target for reducing congestion," he said.

The proposed legislation would allow Merseytravel to increase tolls on two road tunnels under the Mersey and allow other operators to implement similar charges elsewhere, such as on the Forth Road bridge near Edinburgh and the Queen Elizabeth II bridge near Dartford in Kent. Any surplus cash would be spent on improving local transport.

Without government backing for the Bill, Merseytravel, the operator of the two tunnels, is concerned it will not win the votes of 100 MPs, the minimum required. Critics also fear that failure to support the Bill could indicate that the motoring lobby is becoming more influential in Whitehall.

Mr Darling will consider proposals from the CIT for all cars to be fitted with a satellite tracking meter to charge motorists 45p in central London's rush hour, 3.5 per mile on motorways and 4.3p on other roads. He said: "The argument about whether we should have congestion charging and road pricing will run for some time."

Mr Darling, who took over the sensitive transport brief when Stephen Byers resigned in May, set out his plans to allay public anger at Britain's creaking transport system through a "small is beautiful" strategy.

He intends to reject large projects, including the Strategic Rail Authority's plan for a 190mph high-speed link between London and the North. Instead, he will channel more of his ministry's £13bn annual budget into small-scale local road and rail improvements.

Mr Darling said: "Would we be better to spend that money on big, flagship, prestige projects like some great road or rail link between the north and south ... or do you spend it to better advantage on smaller scale things that actually get people moving more quickly in a better way?"

The minister's strategy is to defuse the anger of the public. He said: "We can actually make a big difference to unbung some of the blockages in the system. Not only do we have to demonstrate to people we are moving in the right direction, they want to see improvements year-on-year.

"Smaller things can sometimes get you a hell of a lot more than some big prestigious national project."

¿ The Government is considering proposals to reduce or scrap night curfews on lorry deliveries, which big supermarkets claim lead to more vehicles on the road because of time-wasting in traffic jams.