Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, if he will encourage the operators of the M6 toll, the Dartford-Thurrock river crossing, the Severn Bridge, and other electronic toll roads to use a common tag system.

The Severn Bridge and the M6 Toll both have their own tag systems for paying tolls. The Dartford-Thurrock river crossing, however, will no longer use tags for payment from 30 November when the new payment arrangements, known as Dart Charge, will be introduced.

The European Commission is working on toll payment interoperability, and the Severn Bridge and M6 Toll are compliant with related legally defined technical standards. We are broadly supportive of such interoperability for tolled crossings where this makes sense for road users, but these should not put additional costs on other road users who will not benefit from interoperability.