Articles | Green light for car taxes

Green light for car taxes

Published: Wednesday, 2 July 2008, 11:40PM

The Government has comfortably avoided a Commons defeat over controversial plans to increase car tax on the most polluting vehicles by up to £455.

A Tory bid to amend the Finance Bill to stop the change was rejected by 303 to 240, giving the Government a majority of 63.

Tories labelled Chancellor Alistair Darling's Vehicle Excise Duty (VED) plans "unfair and ineffective" and claimed poorer families would be hit hardest by the change.

The proposals have also worried Labour backbenchers, with almost 50 signing a Commons motion branding the changes "retrospective" because they will apply to all cars registered since March 2001.

Shadow treasury minister Justine Greening said the green taxation is nothing to do with the environment and is everything about eco stealth taxes.

Labour's Richard Burden (Birmingham Northfield) acknowledged the Government "has got some thinking to do" over the changes but said MPs should give Mr Darling time to look again at the measures over the coming months rather than have a "knee-jerk" reaction.