"Another tax from the Labour government - well there's a surprise."

[Sash]

Environment Secretary David Miliband has confirmed the government is holding discussions on tackling climate change using green taxes.

But he would not comment on the accuracy of a leaked letter, which suggested plans for "pay-as-you-drive" taxes and taxes on cheap flights.

He said the motive was to "get to grips with this global climate challenge".

Meanwhile Conservative leader David Cameron has told the BBC he would be prepared to tax air travel.

Liberal Democrat leader Sir Menzies Campbell said "hard choices" had to be made to combat climate change.

The comments came ahead of a report by economist Nicholas Stern, published on Monday, warning that climate change may cut global annual economic output by up to 20%.

Mr Miliband told the BBC that it would be "measures, not targets" that would ultimately make the difference in the drive for change.

"And it's the measures around which we have to build a national consensus and an international consensus to make this change that is ever more vital, " he said.

The Mail on Sunday quoted a leaked letter from Mr Miliband to Chancellor Gordon Brown from 18 October, which it says calls for urgent action in next month's public spending review and next year's Budget.

In the letter, Mr Miliband calls for measures to combat "car use and ownership", and a "substantial increase" in road tax, the paper reported.

He also calls for a new pay-per-mile pollution tax, it said.

The paper said proposals suggest families with big cars could end up paying more than £1,000 a year in additional tax.

'Not for revenue'

Changing people's behaviour is only achieved by "market forces and price signals", Mr Miliband wrote.

He added: "As our understanding of climate change increases, it is clear more needs to be done."

The minister also suggests making flights subject to VAT, for either domestic flights or "better still all EU flights," the Mail said.

Mr Miliband told the BBC that taxes being considered by the government were not intended as a revenue-raising exercise.


"We are using mechanisms available to government, whether they be regulatory or taxation, to change behaviour," he said.

"They're not fundamentally there to raise revenue."

Mr Miliband said Sir Nicholas's report was a "very sobering message" but also one that offered encouragement.

"The sooner you start on this process, the less drastic does the action have to be," he said.

"Sir Nicholas Stern does deliver a strong message that we have to change our behaviour nationally and internationally.

"But there's a second half of his message, and that is that the technology does exist, the financing - public and private - does exist, and the international mechanisms also exist to get to grips with this problem.

"So I don't believe it's a catastrophist message that he puts forward. It's a challenging message, which politicians need to respond to."

Sir Menzies told BBC One's Sunday AM programme: "We have absolutely no option but to deal with the problem of climate change and nothing but hard choices will do it."

Meanwhile Mr Cameron spoke about green levies in an interview for BBC One's The Politics Show.

No 10 turbine

He said: "Some green taxes do hit the poorest in our society, so we have to think about that very carefully before we make taxation decisions.

"If it means putting a tax on air travel, then yes, that's something we'd be prepared to do."

But he said budgetary decisions should be made closer to budgetary times.

"We'll come up with those ideas closer to a general election - but green taxes will go up."

Mr Cameron also gave his backing to Liberal Democrat-controlled Richmond council's plans to charge the drivers of the most polluting vehicles higher parking fees.

He also said he would put a wind turbine and solar panels on top of Number 10 Downing Street if he became prime minister.

The Stern Review examined economic, not environmental, arguments of global warming.

Sir Nicholas's report says that at the very best the cost of tackling global warming would be 1% of annual economic output.

I know the enviroment is important, but after we've paid all these taxes for this that and the other, what are we supposed to live on?

[stejefferies]

it was worked out for 2 radio DJ's car sharing, driving 20 miles to work every day, based on the initial charges being proposed they were paying 22000 a year alone in pay per mile. then petrol, and fuel tax on top of that, and car tax, etc.... total bill around 30k a year on the car...

[emma roids]

imo people that buy a big 4x4 car for 20,30+k are not gonna be persuaded into giving it up for the sake of and extra 1000 quid for parking.
but i agree summin should be done about it, maybe if public transport was half reasonable then people would use that?

[Tesl]

It's a bit of a joke about the "It's not about extra revenue". Of course it is. If it really wasn't about that then why don't they say "We are adding this tax, which we estimate will return £Xmillion to the treasury, hence we are also aboloshing this other tax...."

[Aearin]

Yeah lol i thought the same, its not to help the enviroment its to line there ****ing pockets.

[meow]

I think its ridiculous to try and tax individual things like say cheap air travel etc.

The only sensible and easy way is to tax the one thing that is of any significant consequence and that is burning fosil fuel.

So for example coal fired power stations would pay tax as they burn it and pass the cost on to the electricity user, but nuclear or wind generating electricity stations (as much as I dont like to see wind farms though) would not have the tax, petrol from oil would be taxed at the pumps gas taxed as it is sold to the end user etc.

oil also goes into making plastics and as these dont contribute to global warming they should not incur the tax,
however if the plastics are subsequently burned this is bad they should only be recycled.

However to be fair it needs to be compensated for
by giving the money back to us in other ways, such as no car licence fees etc. subsidised public transport.
and also reduce tax on alternate forms of energy or energy efficiency, and invest in schemes to save energy.