With the UK elections looming, what is each major party promising to the UK drivers?
Good luck finding that out from their various TV appearances – any useful information has been buried under a steaming heap of spin, soundbites, evasion, recriminations and interruptions.
But help is at hand: our at-a-glance guide tells you what the three heavyweight parties have publicly said about their driver-related plans.
Sources for this article
We looked at the official Conservative Manifesto, the Labour Manifesto, and the Liberal Democrat Manifesto. For more detail on Labour’s EV proposals, we consulted Labour’s Plan for the Automotive Sector. We also used the RAC’s summary – with some perceptive comments by their head of policy, and Cittimagazine’s useful summary of the big three’s transport policies. We encourage you to check all the sources out.
Conservatives
If elected, the Conservative and Unionist Party has said it will:
- End road pricing – whether this includes tolls for bridges and motorways isn’t clear.
- Reverse the ULEZ expansion in London.
- Forbid new 20mph zones and Low Traffic Neighbourhoods without local support, assessed through referenda.
- Invest £8.3 billion in resurfacing and filling potholes on 5,000 miles of road, released from the cancellation of Phase 2 of HS2.
- Maintain the current policy of 80% zero-emission of new car and 70% of new vans by 2030, with ICE (petrol and diesel) cars on sale until 2035.
- Ensure a nationwide charging infrastructure for EVs.
- Commit to PumpWatch, the proposed live fuel prices service for drivers.
- “Simplify paying for parking with the National Parking Platform”.(cittimagazine)
- “Maintain a pledge to build no new smart motorways but improve existing ones’ safety”.(cittimagazine)
- Rule out pay-per-mile road tax, where drivers would pay according to how much they use the roads.
Labour
If elected, the Labour Party has said it will:
- Reintroduce the phase-out of ICE cars to 2030.
- Support buyers of second-hand EVs by ensuring standardised information on battery condition.
- Accelerate the roll-out of electric charge points will through a £950 million Rapid Charge Fund.
- Repair an additional one million potholes each year – in part funded by deferring building the A27 bypass.
- ‘Support drivers by tackling the soaring cost of car insurance.’
- Part-finance the building of battery gigafactories, driving down EV costs.
Liberal Democrat
If elected, the Liberal Democrat Party has said it will:
- Restore the phase-out of ICE cars to 2030.
- Reinstate the plug-in car grant, which was removed in 2022.
- Accelerate the roll-out of electric charge points with ‘far more’ charging points, including at petrol stations and on-street via lamp posts.
- Cut VAT on public charging from 20% to 5%.
- “Allocate more of the roads budget to local councils for maintaining roads, pavements, and cycleways, including pothole repairs.” (cittimagazine).
- Protect motorists from rip-offs, including unfair insurance and petrol prices – with “an investigation into rising fuel prices.” (RAC)
In the interests of fairness…
Just a couple of points.
The Conservatives are obviously offering more that will directly appeal to many motorists. But bear in mind that the Labour and Liberal Democrat parties have put greater emphasis on reforming and improving public transport systems – which we haven’t looked at here. This is an important caveat, because what happens in the rest of the transport sector does affect drivers. For example, more investment in public transport has the potential to greatly reduce congestion, especially in urban areas.
Secondly, all three parties say they want to fix Britain’s pothole problem, but RAC head of policy Simon Williams has doubts about all of their policies – see the RAC’s summary, cited above. He calls into question both the scale of the commitment – relative to the size of the problem – and how they will be funded.
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