In the budget of 1909, the then Chancellor of the Exchequer, David Lloyd George combined these grants into a single tax on petrol and a duty on the rated horsepower of motor cars.
Road locomotives were subject to a separate 'wetted tax', where the fee was proportional to the size of the wetted area of the steam boiler.
In 1907 a major problem associated with roads was the level of dust raised by passing motor vehicles and there was support for a tax of £1 or 10s.
If the Government come to the conclusion that they are going to spend less money on the roads, they have to make a case to the motorists why they are not going to reduce the taxation upon their cars.
If they are going to keep on the same taxation and to spend the money derived from the motorists upon Imperial taxation, let them say so.Hypothecation of VED into the Road Fund was formally ended under the Finance Act 1936, in accordance with the recommendations of the Salter Report that controversially sought to introduce a balance between the road haulage industry and the railways.