A Citizens’ Assembly for Road Pricing?
Regular readers of this blog (as well as deserving sympathy) will know that I believe road pricing to be the number 1 existential issue facing this industry.
So it was with interest that I read of Transport for the North’s idea to hold a Citizens’ Assembly on the subject.
I happen to know a little bit about Citizens’ Assemblies, as my local MP (the intelligent Stella Creasy) is a big advocate.
And this strikes me as a really sensible suggestion.
Citizens’ Assemblies are deliberative groups of people chosen randomly to reach a conclusion on a difficult topic. The principle is a bit like jury service. In this case, though, it is not truth but consensus that the jury seek.
They are used to try to address complex or contentious issues where people have strong feelings and will, otherwise, retreat into opposing bunkers.
Some of the more successful citizens’ assemblies have dealt with very specific questions that politicians believed were too hot-to-handle but on which the public had more nuance than they were credited with.
Ireland used a 99 person citizens’ assembly to propose the legalisation of abortion, having previously adopted another citizens’ assembly recommendation to permit gay marriage. These questions were seen as desperately divisive and painful in a country with a powerful Catholic heritage and a more liberal youth. The citizens’ assembly was able to convince politicians that there was a consensus position worth progressing.
In France, President Macron reached for a Citizens’ Assembly to deal with the very issue of road taxation. When a hike in fuel tax caused the “Yellow Vest” protests that, at one point, saw barricades erected in Paris and 11 deaths, Macron withdrew the tax and summoned 150 people to come up with an alternative package of climate measures that would enable France to hit its international climate change obligations.
While some of the proposals have been watered down subsequently (the assembly’s recommendation on a ban on domestic flights that can be undertaken by train in less than four hours, for example, saw the threshold reduced to 2 1/2), overall the exercise was a striking success.
Surely there must be a better way of sorting this out?…
Citizens’ Assemblies work less well on issues that can only be solved by money. A Northern Irish citizens’ assembly recommended more funding to address social care. Well, obviously…
But road pricing doesn’t cost anything: it’s just a question of picking winners and losers, with tact and nuance. Maybe 99 citizens can achieve consensus where politicians cannot.
This isn’t something to rush into.
Citizens’ Assemblies only work if they are high profile. Otherwise, there’s no sense of momentum at the end and the recommendations are often ignored. The Irish citizens’ assembly was live-streamed. Rory Stewart, the wild-card Tory who stood against Boris Johnson in 2019, proposed solving Brexit through a Citizens’ Assembly. Heaven knows if that could have worked, but it would certainly have been high profile!
He believes in them. But, then, he also believes in sleeping in strangers’ houses to campaign…
So could a citizens’ assembly enable a consensus on road pricing?
Well, there are lots of obstacles. It’s essential that the Government creates parameters to the question within which it’s happy to implement any conclusion. It’s essential that it’s high profile. And it’s essential that the participants are truly representative.
But on a topic dominated by a small number of extremists (in which I include myself), a cross-section of British society could easily find the landing spot that works for everyone.
Do you Tweet? Here’s one ready-made
