Severn Bridge Tolls:"Minister has nothing new to say"

12.00.00am GMT Tue 26th Jan 2010

The Severn Bridges Act is not a sacred tablet of stone behind which to hide

Responding to the letter sent by UK Minister of State for Transport, Sadiq Khan, to a Plaid Cymru Assembly Member, Mr. German said: "The Minister has nothing new to say and is hiding behind the Severn Bridges Act as if it were a sacred tablet of stone and saying that it can never be change."

He added: "The minister says that the tolls cannot be frozen without the consent of the bridge operator. Parliament included a clause in the Act to be able to freeze the tolls in any given year when the country was facing a recession or if we faced hyper-inflation. That way Wales would not get hammered every year."

Last week Mr. German held a debate in the National Assembly for Wales calling for the tolls to be abolished after the concession period comes to end sometimes after 2016. He said: "However I think it's a little rich for Plaid Cymru to come into the debate on the Severn Bridges tolls so long after the event. Not one Plaid Cymru Assembly member turned up for the debate on the future of the Severn tolls. The Plaid Cymru transport Minister couldn't be bothered to attend. The official response of the Plaid-Labour Welsh Government on the future of the tolls is that "it's not a matter for Wales. It's the UK government's responsibility."

This week Mr. German, a long time campaigner to get debit and credit cards used for toll payments, was delighted by the news that cards will be accepted sometime in the later half of 2010.