New green taxes to be unveiled

Reports over the weekend suggested British motorists will be penalised unless they drive less environmentally damaging cars, such as Toyota's latest electric vehicle, pictured above at the Tokyo Motor Show.

Drivers and householders will face significant increases in environmental taxation in the coming years, according to the leaked recommend-ations from the Green Fiscal Commission, a think tank established by the Government which is due to publish its findings today.

Lord Turner, the head of the Committee on Climate Change, will present the recommendations, which are thought to include a proposal to increase the tax on new cars to a top rate of £3,300 by 2020. A trebling of fuel duty over the next decade, a household energy tax and incentives to adopt low-carbon technology are also thought to be among the ideas that will be unveiled ahead of the Pre-Budget Report.

Paul Elkins, a professor at University College London and the author of the report, said: "We've had it as a given that energy is cheap, so we may have been wasteful. This has to change and the only way to do that is to make the polluter pay."