Underinvestment relative to tax taken
- Road users get poor return on the money that they spend on motoring taxation. The Treasury raises £43 billion per year in road taxes but the total annual spend on the road network is around £7 billion
- Public spending on Britain’s road and rail infrastructure is broadly similar. In 2003/4 £4.2 billion capital expenditure was made on roads and £4.7 billion on rail
- Rail spending is taking a bigger and bigger slice of the transport budget each year. Public investment in national rail infrastructure has seen a fourfold increase since 1991/2 (at constant 2003 prices) (£ billion actual public investment, outturn prices, source Transport Statistics Great Britain Table 1.14)
| Road | ||
| Rail | ||
| Other* |
*airports and ports infrastructure
- The OECD concluded: “the UK ranks poorly in international comparisons regarding the quality of transport infrastructure and congestion. The case for raising expenditure on strategic roads should be considered as, (based on current plans) spending in real terms remains well below levels in the fi rst half of the 1990s” (OECD October 2005)
Roughly 60 per cent of the cost of a litre of bulk diesel is duty; including VAT, the tax take rises to 72 per cent
Sources: Transport Statistics Great Britain 2005, FTA Manager’s Guide to Distribution Cost
In 2004 motorways accounted for less than one per cent of road length, trunk and other major roads 12 per cent and minor roads (B,C or unclassifi ed) represented 87 per cent. These proportions have remained broadly stable since 1980
Source: Transport Statistics Great Britain 2005, Road traffic statistics 2005 FTA Freight Statistics 2006
In constant 2003 prices public investment in roads has fallen, whereas rail investment has risen
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