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Speaking at the FTA Freight Summit in London today, Transport Secretary Stephen Ladyman was enthusiastic about the idea of a “vignette” for road charging, as proposed by the Haulage Industry Task Group. He said that he was “talking in very broad terms” about a “cost-neutral” annual vignette for UK hauliers, while operators  from overseas would be able to buy the vignettes online.

Pricing of the vignette would have to be in line with similar European systems in order to comply with EU competition law.

Dr Ladyman added that the system would have to be as simple as possible, in order to keep costs down and make the proposals more likely to happen.

He also suggested that having the vignette in place might discourage less responsible operators from working in the UK.