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In what appears to be a replica of the failed Lorry Road User Charging (LRUC) scheme, the Conservative Party has outlined plans to charge foreign trucks to use UK roads. The party's economic competitive policy group, chaired by John Redwood, suggests that any future Conservative government should implement a system of charging  all trucks for their mileage on British roads. To ensure British hauliers are not penalised, the group suggests that either the fuel duty on diesel or the rate of truck excise duty should be reduced.

Despite CM's questions, the party could give no indication as to how the scheme would differ from the LRUC, which was proposed in the 2001 Pre-Budget Report and finally scrapped as an unviable proposal in 2005. The Conservatives have also suggested the state of the roads in the country is so poor that private investment would be a requirement to meet the necessary capacity.

Roger King, chief executive at the Road Haulage Association, says the recognition of the need for additional road infrastructure is welcome, "but we are cautious [about] this renewed enthusiasm for lorry road user charging,  however well intentioned it is in seeking to achieve an urgently needed levelling of the fuel duties paid by UK and foreign hauliers".

He adds the Conservative proposal sounds like a re-run of the LRUC scheme which was abandoned in 2005, apparently on the grounds of impracticality and cost. Geoff Dossetter, external affairs director at the Freight Transport Association, agrees that the plan appears to be similar to the LRUC. "Such a scheme is attractive because it would charge foreign lorries for using UK roads and help equalise the enormous difference in operating costs between the UK and the rest of Europe.

"However, the UK road transport industry needs a guarantee from the Conservatives that there would be no real increase in the level of taxation on UK commercial vehicles for the foreseeable future." Regarding the idea of using private investment to improve the infrastructure, Dossetter says the plans are common sense and ever more necessary.