phasing out of fossil fuels - programme

[Tony Brooks]

If  that £1.50 a mile was introduced then at the present rate it would seem to be cheaper to travel longer distances by train, that on the surface looks a good thing but could the railways provide the extra capacity. I understand many main lines are operating close to capacity. Then there would be a potential increase in goods traffic to consider. Seems to me it would be an ideal opportunity to substantially raise the fares on all public transport so once again its ordinary people who end up very much worse off.

 

Still looking for a bright side, making populations even more captive to their local area may well allow a captive and ready supply of labour in that area to depress wages to the benefit of capital. Before anyone shuts conspiracy theory/fake news remember pressure has been applied in the past to do away with national wage scales and introduce local ones and what some may consider devious means have been employed to bring this about - look at education with free schools and academias.

[Pluto]

1 minute ago, Tony Brooks said:

Still looking for a bright side, making populations even more captive to their local area may well allow a captive and ready supply of labour in that area to depress wages to the benefit of capital. Before anyone shuts conspiracy theory/fake news remember pressure has been applied in the past to do away with national wage scales and introduce local ones and what some may consider devious means have been employed to bring this about - look at education with free schools and academias.

If that was the case, why do not SE based firms move to the north where wage rates are lower?

[Tony Brooks]

14 minutes ago, Pluto said:

If that was the case, why do not SE based firms move to the north where wage rates are lower?

Well they have haven't they and some have lost "talented" staff by so doing. BBC and ITV to name two who have moved a lot of work to Manchester. Then you have the implications of an individual firms need of the local infrastructure like the other firms they rely upon and specific transport links. If you are supplying in fight meals to Heathrow there is not a lot of point in moving to Newcastle and then face transporting your product down south or hoping you can contract for similar volumes locally. For on main manufacturing firm to move is likely to require a number of suppliers and customers to also move unless cost penalties are faced.

[peterboat]

We are supposed to be building a battery gigafactory in the UK at the moment its wither Wales the Northeast or Sollihul that is up for it, now most of our car makers are in the midlands so where will it be built? Also the Lithium would in the future be coming from Cornwall

[Jen-in-Wellies]

35 minutes ago, Tony Brooks said:

If  that £1.50 a mile was introduced then at the present rate it would seem to be cheaper to travel longer distances by train, that on the surface looks a good thing but could the railways provide the extra capacity. I understand many main lines are operating close to capacity. Then there would be a potential increase in goods traffic to consider. Seems to me it would be an ideal opportunity to substantially raise the fares on all public transport so once again its ordinary people who end up very much worse off.

 

Still looking for a bright side, making populations even more captive to their local area may well allow a captive and ready supply of labour in that area to depress wages to the benefit of capital. Before anyone shuts conspiracy theory/fake news remember pressure has been applied in the past to do away with national wage scales and introduce local ones and what some may consider devious means have been employed to bring this about - look at education with free schools and academias.

It isn't a conspiracy theory if they really are out to get you. ?

[phantom_iv]

So at £1.50 a mile it'd cost me £30 to go to the supermarket in road taxes before I'd even paid for electricity to propel me there or for any shopping. Not sure this is going to work for poor people in rural communities where there is no public transport...

 

 

[Mike Todd]

41 minutes ago, Tony Brooks said:

If  that £1.50 a mile was introduced then at the present rate it would seem to be cheaper to travel longer distances by train, that on the surface looks a good thing but could the railways provide the extra capacity. I understand many main lines are operating close to capacity. Then there would be a potential increase in goods traffic to consider. Seems to me it would be an ideal opportunity to substantially raise the fares on all public transport so once again its ordinary people who end up very much worse off.

 

Still looking for a bright side, making populations even more captive to their local area may well allow a captive and ready supply of labour in that area to depress wages to the benefit of capital. Before anyone shuts conspiracy theory/fake news remember pressure has been applied in the past to do away with national wage scales and introduce local ones and what some may consider devious means have been employed to bring this about - look at education with free schools and academias.

London weighted pay scales went back a long time in some contexts

[Thomas C King]

42 minutes ago, Tony Brooks said:

Still looking for a bright side, making populations even more captive to their local area may well allow a captive and ready supply of labour in that area to depress wages to the benefit of capital. Before anyone shuts conspiracy theory/fake news remember pressure has been applied in the past to do away with national wage scales and introduce local ones and what some may consider devious means have been employed to bring this about - look at education with free schools and academias.

But on the face of it that would depress wages in one area whilst inflating wages in another, e.g., London. This could have a knock-on effect of companies relocating to those areas with lower wages, thereby levelling the wage imbalance between the South and North. We have seen this in tech with Bristol currently offering lower tech salaries than other areas, but with increased interest of tech companies. Moreover, we are now seeing more tech companies looking for remote workers only so as to save on London salaries.

 

If there is a conspiracy that coincides with your theory, then the conspiracists have missed out on some of the complexity, which I'm not even sure leads to a predictable outcome.

[IanD]

16 minutes ago, phantom_iv said:

So at £1.50 a mile it'd cost me £30 to go to the supermarket in road taxes before I'd even paid for electricity to propel me there or for any shopping. Not sure this is going to work for poor people in rural communities where there is no public transport...

 

 

If the purpose of the per-mile tax is to replace the revenue lost to the government from fuel tax it wouldn't have to be anything close to this high, a typical car in the UK contributes about 10p a mile in fuel tax which is a quid each way for your supermarket run.

 

So let's not indulge in too much panic-mongering, this is still *far* cheaper than any other way of getting around except riding a bike ?

14 hours ago, Cheshire cat said:

I have just been chatting with my brother about this. He has a Nissan EV200. At the moment Octopus pay him to charge it up overnight.

 

I can't see how they would determine you were using electricity to charge a vehicle

Because to work using off-peak (night) charging with variable rates (possibly different for cars and other uses) in the future you will need a smart charger, which will talk to your smart car, so "they" know that's what you're doing with the power.

Edited November 16, 2020 by IanD

[Alan de Enfield]

6 minutes ago, IanD said:

If the purpose of the per-mile tax is to replace the revenue lost to the government from fuel tax it wouldn't have to be anything close to this high, a typical car in the UK contributes about 10p a mile in fuel tax which is a quid each way for your supermarket run.

 

So let's not indulge in too much panic-mongering, this is still *far* cheaper than any other way of getting around except riding a bike ?

Correct, my fuel duty actually works out at 10.5p per mile. but then there is :

 

+ Loss of VAT on the fuel

+ Loss of VED

Edited November 16, 2020 by Alan de Enfield

[ditchcrawler]

13 hours ago, Machpoint005 said:

 

Not necessary - just introduce road pricing (think M6 Toll, but everywhere)

 

Pedantry, I know, but this is a technical discussion.

 

Suit your self

[IanD]

1 hour ago, Alan de Enfield said:

Correct, my fuel duty actually works out at 10.5p per mile. but then there is :

 

+ Loss of VAT on the fuel

+ Loss of VED

<sigh> I did say typical -- and even if we take your numbers and are pessimistic it's still 15p a mile, 10x lower than the fearmongering figure ?

[peterboat]

2 hours ago, roland elsdon said:

I suspect an ownership tax will re emerge. Ie ved. It will be much higher to deal with the congestion pollution and revenue issue.

Currently in the uk  we pay the same ved on our diesel vehicle as on our glycogen powered vehicles. ( which last year did three times the distance ) .

 

our stranded camper in Australia pays a huge amount of ved compared to what it would here.

 

Ownership/pollution/ location / value equation will be a complicated but lucrative formula. Road pricing is too equitable.

I think that fuel tax on  the remaining ICE powered vehicles will high anyway as a method to get them off the road, thisbis after 2030 when all new vehicles will be electric 

[Machpoint005]

2 hours ago, Bacchus said:

By the mile charging is another iniquitous tax on the North!

 

You can commute forty miles to work in Yorkshire in the time it takes to drive a mile in Greater London!

If it takes an hour to drive a mile in London, why don't they walk?More to the point, how can they be made encouraged to walk

 

2 hours ago, Tony Brooks said:

Well they have haven't they and some have lost "talented" staff by so doing. BBC and ITV to name two who have moved a lot of work to Manchester. <<

 

Ahem! To Salford!

 

 

[magpie patrick]

1 hour ago, IanD said:

Because to work using off-peak (night) charging with variable rates (possibly different for cars and other uses) in the future you will need a smart charger, which will talk to your smart car, so "they" know that's what you're doing with the power.

I wonder if it could detect a cannabis greenhouse? 

 

 

Edited November 16, 2020 by magpie patrick

[IanD]

1 hour ago, magpie patrick said:

I wonder if it could detect a cannabis greenhouse? 

 

 

Only if it was a smart greenhouse ?

[Pluto]

3 hours ago, Tony Brooks said:

Well they have haven't they and some have lost "talented" staff by so doing. BBC and ITV to name two who have moved a lot of work to Manchester. Then you have the implications of an individual firms need of the local infrastructure like the other firms they rely upon and specific transport links. If you are supplying in fight meals to Heathrow there is not a lot of point in moving to Newcastle and then face transporting your product down south or hoping you can contract for similar volumes locally. For on main manufacturing firm to move is likely to require a number of suppliers and customers to also move unless cost penalties are faced.

I am quite sure they could find 'talented' staff locally if they cared to look. Are you certain that in flight meals are put together at Heathrow, given the vast milages that foodstuffs are carried around the country. Sandwiches sold in the major high street stores seem to be made at just a few centres, and delivered long distances in some cases. Regarding your last sentence, we don't make very much now, with successive governments ensuring a decline in manufacturing, except perhaps for military materials. Over the last few months, we haven't even been able to make sufficient PPE in this country, probably because untalented people in the south did not realise there were people with excellent talents in the north.

[IanD]

1 hour ago, Pluto said:

I am quite sure they could find 'talented' staff locally if they cared to look. Are you certain that in flight meals are put together at Heathrow, given the vast milages that foodstuffs are carried around the country. Sandwiches sold in the major high street stores seem to be made at just a few centres, and delivered long distances in some cases. Regarding your last sentence, we don't make very much now, with successive governments ensuring a decline in manufacturing, except perhaps for military materials. Over the last few months, we haven't even been able to make sufficient PPE in this country, probably because untalented people in the south did not realise there were people with excellent talents in the north.

All BA inflight meals come from DO & CO in Feltham, near Heathrow. Other airline caterers in the UK like Gate Gourmet are also near Heathrow.

 

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/nov/04/more-than-1000-heathrow-catering-jobs-at-risk-in-new-covid-cuts

https://www.thesun.co.uk/travel/12558012/british-airways-caterer-axe-jobs/

Edited November 16, 2020 by IanD

[magpie patrick]

1 hour ago, Pluto said:

I am quite sure they could find 'talented' staff locally if they cared to look.

In general I agree, but in some instances there is a pool of specialist labour - Ilminster in Somerset hosts a few medical optics suppliers - the staff don't want to move and it's so specialist the companies don't want to move either.

 

1 hour ago, Pluto said:

 Are you certain that in flight meals are put together at Heathrow

I know quite a percentage are as one of them is my client! We deal with transportation issues for them, and given the number that arise on a three mile journey then a 100 mile one would be a non starter - these operations make "just in time" look like a drunken crawl home after a late night out

[cuthound]

21 hours ago, Alan de Enfield said:

 

Does anyone not expect that very soon there will be 'duty' added to the electricity used to charge vehicles - "they" will somehow have to make up for the lost duty from petroleum fuels.

 

Either that or the government will introduce road pricing. However they will wait until EV take-up reaches a certain level.

 

For sure they wont just sit back and lose the revenue that fuel duty provides

Edited November 16, 2020 by cuthound
Take, not make

[Alan de Enfield]

1 minute ago, cuthound said:

 

Either that or the government will introduce road pricing. However they will wait until EV make-up reaches a certain level.

 

For sure they wont just sit back and lose the revenue that fuel duty provides

Discussion in Government already. I posted the info in post #198

 

(Do you think they get their ideas from this forum ?)

[Cheshire cat]

Charging for use is still biased against the North. All the big sport stadia are in London. Most of the national galleries and museums. The majority of conferences take place there. The list goes on. The train takes some of the strain but the timing isn't always convenient.

[cuthound]

7 hours ago, Tony Brooks said:

If  that £1.50 a mile was introduced then at the present rate it would seem to be cheaper to travel longer distances by train, that on the surface looks a good thing but could the railways provide the extra capacity. I understand many main lines are operating close to capacity. Then there would be a potential increase in goods traffic to consider. Seems to me it would be an ideal opportunity to substantially raise the fares on all public transport so once again its ordinary people who end up very much worse off.

 

Still looking for a bright side, making populations even more captive to their local area may well allow a captive and ready supply of labour in that area to depress wages to the benefit of capital. Before anyone shuts conspiracy theory/fake news remember pressure has been applied in the past to do away with national wage scales and introduce local ones and what some may consider devious means have been employed to bring this about - look at education with free schools and academias.

 

Happened in BT 20 years ago. They incorporated London Weighting into your pay. Problem was they then withheld pay rises to those previously in receipt of LW  because their pay was higher.

 

All that happened was they could no longer retain or attract staff to work in London because of the higher living costs.

7 hours ago, Pluto said:

If that was the case, why do not SE based firms move to the north where wage rates are lower?

 

In the case of BT, despite many efforts to raise it elsewhere, productivity was higher in London and the South East.

[mrsmelly]

 

[Momac]

5 hours ago, peterboat said:

I think that fuel tax on  the remaining ICE powered vehicles will high 

That would be a tax on lower paid people who cant afford anything more than a relatively old car.