Assurance on Tolls
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ERE were no other trnnk road projects on which the Government was thinking of charging tolls, assured Mr. Stephen Swingler, Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Transport, when the Commons gave a second reading last week to the Severn Bridge Tolls Bill. The decision to go ahead with the proposal to charge tolls on the bridge did not in any way imply that the Government was considering levying tolls on motorways or other long stretches of new roads, he said.
Mr. Swingler's predecessor in the Conservative Government. Mr. Thomas Galbraith, welcomed the present Government's decision to give effect so soon to a Tory provision, but expressed surprise at the complete turn-round.
Claiming that the Labour Party had been opposed to tolls, Mr. Galbraith said he hoped they would learn equally quickly the folly of its ideas on other transport subjects, such as hostility to Dr. Beeching's reshaping report on the railways He wondered whether there was a split on the subject of tolls in the Labour Party, and he asked the Minister of Transport to state the policy categorically.
Mr. Galbraith asked how the Minister would reach figures for the tolls to be paid by different types of vehicles, while Mr. W. A. Wilkins (Labour, Bristol South) suggested that when the decision was being made it might also be a valuable opportunity to re-examine the taxation system of road vehicles and to take into account the amount of damage they did to road surfaces.
Mr. Tom Fraser replied that it would be wrong of him at that stage to say what he thought the toll should be. The amount of the toll, and whether it would differentiate between one type of vehicle and another, would be contained in a draft Order.