IT came as no surprise that, when I went to re-tax my car recently, the duty had risen by another £10.

If my vehicle ran on diesel fuel, I would have paid about £80 to £90 less. I am in fact being fined because of slightly greater emissions, as mine is run on petrol – a stealth tax however you look at it, using the green issue as an excuse.

People with petrol-driven cars will see their car tax increase each year to pay for all these new greener cars with nil or very little tax, as the Treasury is losing a lot of money.

Years ago, the Government stopped the free car tax on cars 25 years or older, which were classed as vintage, because of the loss to the Treasury.

In time all these newer, greener cars will have their excise licence increased substantially to swell the coffers. Notice, I said excise licence (duty). Didn’t it used to be known as The road fund licence, where the money used to be used for repairing old and building new roads?

If you look at the state of our roads today, very little of these millions or billions of pounds seems to be spent on our roads. One consolation – we do have lots of fun playing ‘dodge the pothole’.

MICHAEL CLARKE, Lewell Avenue, Old Marston, Oxford