True about subsidies Glos Guy and I’m sure like me you agree subsidising clean transport is a worthwhile use of our taxes. On the other hand wasting tens of billions on a track and trace system that never worked is not a good use of our taxes. Especially when much of those “missing funds” seems to have gone to government cronies. Also worth remembering that ICE cars are also subsidised. Fuel duty has remained frozen for 10 years plus.
In all honesty Daf I am generally uncomfortable with the concept of tax payer funded subsidies. It’s difficult when it comes to green issues as we do have to be forced, given that many of the technologies are still in their relative infancy and, due to high development costs, tend not to stack up in their own right just yet. Giving a helping hand to early adopters does indeed help get things going and ultimately reduces the costs and speeds up wider adoption, but this should be time limited.
The problem that I have though is that the beneficiaries of these subsidies tend to ultimately be the suppliers and not the consumers. Take the Citroen example quoted earlier. They have immediately reduced the selling price by £500. The consumer, therefore, sees no difference leaving the inevitable conclusion that the beneficiary of that £500 UK taxpayer funded subsidy in that particular case has been a French Automotive manufacturer! Exactly the same has been happening in the house building industry in recent years with all the subsidies and schemes that have been thrown at it. House prices have gone up and up, so the consumer is no better off, meanwhile profits of the house building companies have sky rocketed. Sometimes it’s just better, and far cheaper, to let the market dictate supply, demand and prices.
I shall avoid the temptation to get into party political politics, other than to say that in my lifetime there has never been a government (of any colour) that hasn’t wasted billions on one thing or another, or managed to crash the economy. Sadly, most politicians have such little real world experience that they couldn’t manage a corner shop, let alone a nations economy! I take your point about fuel duty but, as you will know, the bulk of the cost of petrol and diesel is duties and tax, so I don’t think that many drivers, when pumping £60 of fuel into their cars, feel that they are being subsidised!