Darling tells city to reject tolls findings

Alistair Darling, who is also MP for Central Edinburgh, said councillors must press ahead with plans to exempt people in rural west Edinburgh from paying the 2 congestion charge at the outer cordon - despite the idea being rejected at the hearing.

Mr Darling said he "completely disagreed" with the view of the Scottish Executive’s inquiry reporters, who said the exemption had to be scrapped to ensure fair treatment for all.

He also condemned their refusal to back the council’s plans to exempt buses and taxis, saying the finding "beggared belief". The Cabinet Minister said he would be urging council leader Donald Anderson and city transport leader Andrew Burns to "stick to their guns" and include the exemptions in their proposals taken forward to next year’s referendum.

He is seeking a meeting with the pair within a fortnight to tell them to "be brave" and not back down from a previous pledge to treat everyone in Edinburgh the same.

Mr Darling said: "If the congestion-charging scheme is to go ahead in Edinburgh then I believe everyone living in the city must be treated equally. It’s absolutely essential to the fairness of the scheme that this happens and if it doesn’t then that is a show-stopper for the whole scheme as far as I’m concerned.

"There is an intellectual case for treating the boundary of the city as the boundary for the scheme and the council should stick to its guns.

"I don’t understand at all the sense in saying that buses and taxis should be charged to cross the toll cordon. It beggars belief that the inquiry reports could recommend this. It just seems daft."

He added that the only reason people in rural west Edinburgh could not be included within the scheme’s outer cordon was because of a logistical "quirk" that prevents the council charging anyone to use the city bypass.

The bypass is, effectively, the boundary for the outer cordon, but this rules out a large swathe of the Capital from being included within the inner and outer cordons.

Mr Darling entered the debate for the first time just days after the council was told it could press ahead with the bulk of its scheme.

The news triggered plans for a city-wide referendum, due to be held early next year, although the council has refused to immediately endorse the recommendations to dump the exemptions for buses and taxis, as well as people in west Edinburgh areas such as Currie, Balerno, Juniper Green, Kirkliston and South Queensferry.

The council is also facing massive opposition from politicians and local authority leaders in West Lothian, Fife and Midlothian, who claim taxpayers will be unfairly treated if they have to pay to cross the outer cordon while householders in rural west Edinburgh escape the charge there.

Mr Darling’s views put him at odds with Livingston MP Robin Cook, the former Leader of the House of Commons, who told the Evening News yesterday that the inquiry findings on the west Edinburgh exemptions proved the council’s plans were "discriminatory" against his constituents.

A spokesman for the city council said: "The Transport Scotland Act only allows local authorities to impose congestion charges for the use of public roads other than trunk roads. This means that the city bypass cannot be included in a proposed Edinburgh congestion charging scheme."