Motorists face fees to drive on busiest roads

The potential new charge on driving will be revealed this week by Transport Secretary Alistair Darling, who will use his first address since the election to launch a "national debate" on the importance of introducing a national road pricing scheme to solve chronic congestion.

Satellite and global-positioning systems will be used to charge drivers at peak periods in traffic hotspots - such as the M25 in London and the M1 in the Midlands - once the technology becomes available in around a decade.

Although congestion levels in Scotland are not as high as in some parts of England, the Scottish Executive says it supports road pricing in principle and any scheme would have to be implemented across the UK as a whole for it to work effectively.

The introduction of road pricing will mean reductions in fuel duty - leading to lower fuel prices - and road tax if the country's 28 million motorists are to be persuaded of its benefits, Darling will indicate.

In a speech to the Social Market Foundation think-tank on Thursday, Darling is expected to say: "We need to decide in the course of this parliament whether this is going to be feasible. Too often in the past governments have concentrated on fixing the problems of the past 20 years. We must concentrate on dealing with the problems of the next 20 years."

He will point to the "clogged" motorways of suburban Los Angeles as a future vision of the UK's road network. "If that is the future here, I don't think people will stand for it."

A plan to introduce congestion charging in Edinburgh, in which motorists would have paid a daily 2 toll charge to enter the city at peak times, failed when it was voted down in a referendum earlier this year.

Darling's comments will come as the government braces itself for a damaging assessment of Britain's antiquated transport system prepared by British Airways' departing chief executive Rod Eddington.