We can raise billions taxing cyclists and electric car users

As the government is looking towards cuts to fund the UK deficit, why don’t they take the levelling-up approach and impose more taxes on cyclists and electric car users to raise income? Both are using roads and having investment spent on infrastructure and maintenance which is currently subsidised by other vehicle users and council budgets. So how can this be justified when councils should be prioritising their budgets towards the social care areas which are most in need?

If we now have 1 million electric vehicles and 6.5 million cyclists on the roads, implementing new or increased road-user tax could possibly raise essential billions which could be spent on improving essential community services. It is no good championing environmental needs if other important social needs are neglected.

C Jones Cheshire

Bad air is killing us

Having read “Failure to ditch fossil fuels putting health of ‘all people alive’ at growing risk” in The Independent, we now know that lung cancer is the biggest killer and accounts for most cancer deaths, and it has the poorest survival rates. New evidence shows that it’s now being blamed on air pollution caused by fossil fuels instead of smoking.

Researchers at Francis Crick Institute in London discovered that air pollution leads to cancer by waking up old damaged cells that give rise to tumours rather than healthy cells multiplying out of control. When exploring why non-smokers get lung cancer, it discovered that one in 10 cases in the UK was caused by air pollution. It’s a breakthrough in understanding the impact of pollution and its direct link to cancer.

Research from Harvard University explained that producing and burning fossil fuels creates air pollution harmful to our health and generates toxic emissions that drive the climate crisis. It releases pollutants that lead to early death, heart attacks, cancer, respiratory disorders, strokes and asthma. It has also been linked to autism spectrum disorder and Alzheimer’s disease.

Despite the damage to health, nature and the environment, Greenpeace says the government is planning to approve more than 100 new oil and gas (fossil fuels) licences. Greenpeace is challenging the government for unlawfully approving the development of the Jackdaw field, and may do the same for the Cambo and Rosebank sites in the North Sea.

With only eight years left to reverse the impact of the climate crisis, I would like the prime minister to justify why he is pushing ahead with fossil fuel projects when it won’t lower energy bills, is intensifying the climate crisis and is killing us.

Jeannette Schael Tadley, Hampshire