Transport Secretary Alistair Darling has insisted road charging would be brought in - even though the Government admitted lorry drivers were shunning the M6 Toll and sticking to the free motorway. But the Highways Agency said it could only guess about HGV traffic on the M6 Toll because the private company which owns the 27- mile stretch refuses to give it the figures. The admission was made by Archie Robertson, chief executive of the Highways Agency, as Mr Darling confirmed he believed road charges were needed across the country. They were giving evidence to a House of Commons investigation into the M6 Toll, north of Birmingham, which opened just over a year ago. The Government is considering extending the toll road by building a new 50-mile expressway linking the Midlands with Greater Manchester. But critics have claimed congestion in some sections of the original free-to-use M6 has actually increased since the toll road opened. Midland Expressway Ltd, the private company which built and runs the £900 million M6 Toll, was forced to cut charges for heavy goods vehicles from £11 to £6 in an attempt to entice them on to the toll road. Speaking yesterday to the Commons Transport Committee, Mr Robertson said: "We have seen an increase in freight traffic going on to that part of the corridor, but only a small proportion of the M6 Toll traffic appears to be heavy goods vehicles." However, HGVs still made up a "very heavy proportion" of traffic on the original M6, he said. At some times of day, a quarter of vehicles on the motorway were lorries. Pressed by MP Gwyneth Dunwoody, the Transport Committee chair, he said the proportion of M6 Toll traffic made up of HGVs may have increased from four per cent to eight per cent, but this was an educated guess as the MEL refused to give the figures as they were "commercially priviliged". Transport Secretary Alistair Darling told the committee the M6 Toll had been a success, but warned that Britain needed a national road-pricing strategy to avoid gridlock. Figures presented to the MPs showed the number of vehicles, using the M6, had fallen from 144,000 a day in November 2003, before the M6 Toll opened, to 113,000 a day in November 2004 and 109,000 a day in December 2004. Mr Darling said that in the long term, he believed Britain needed a nationwide system of road-pricing which replaced existing road taxes. "We can't build our way out of these problems and therefore we need to look at something like road pricing." However, he said road pricing would not be likely for, at least, 15 years. The committee also heard evidence from MEL's managing director Tom Fanning, who was challenged by MPs to explain why AA and RAC breakdown vehicles had to pay a toll to rescue motorists whose vehicles broke down. He said: "Simply, we are a business as the AA and RAC are businesses. We charge them to go through and they charge it back to their customers." | 
