Michael Lea

Daily Mail Online

July 9, 2008

Almost half of all car owners will be up to £245 worse off under plans for massive increases in road tax, the Treasury admitted yesterday.

And fewer than one in five will benefit from the controversial move, which was sold as a way to cut greenhouse gas emissions.

The Government’s own figures demolish ministers’ claims that Budget plans to overhaul vehicle excise duty will have little impact on motorists.

In the Commons last month, Gordon Brown said: ‘The majority of drivers will benefit from it.’

But in an apparent contradiction yesterday, Treasury minister Angela Eagle admitted to MPs that from April 2010 it will cost more to keep 43 per cent of all cars on the road – some 9,423,450 vehicles.

More than one million drivers of cars registered between 2001 and 2006 will see road tax jump from £210 to either £430 or £455 depending on emissions, while others face hikes of between £10 and £155.

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