I thank the noble Lord for that intervention. UK hauliers will pay a charge on a toll road in France in the same way as anyone else.
We are looking into the HGV levy and how to use it better. It may be a method of addressing this issue and I will certainly consider that. I think there is still a toll road on the M6, so obviously that has happened in one case in the UK. However, there are not currently plans for the Government to introduce tolling systems.
On the types of permits, which the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, raised, there will be many options, including, but not limited to, single journey, annual bilateral—ECMT have both of those—and annual multilateral. Exactly what permits we have will be subject to negotiations.
Returning to the HGV levy, foreign hauliers currently pay the levy and so make a contribution to the roads, but, as I said, we are looking at that in detail and I shall send noble Lords more information on it.
We have aimed for the clause to be clear on what fees may be charged for, which allows us to consolidate all the regulations on existing permit fees in one place rather than them being split across a number of regulations. This will give greater clarity to operators and hopefully will be simpler to follow and allow better scrutiny for Parliament.
We think we need to charge a small application fee to recover the cost of processing the application—that will be payable by all applicants—and an issuing fee to recover the administrative costs of issuing the permit will then be payable by successful applicants only. There should not be a single fee, either for application or issuing, because unsuccessful applicants would bear some of the cost for issuing permits or vice versa. Hauliers should pay for what they use rather than paying the same costs irrespective of whether or not they have a permit—should they be needed, which we all hope they will not.
We want to introduce separate application and issuing fees. There is a precedent within the haulage sector for charging fees in this way as its operator licensing regime has both the application and issuing fees made in the regulations under the Goods Vehicles (Licensing of Operators) Act 1995.
I apologise because at this stage I am not able to provide the Committee with specific figures of what the fees for permits will be. It will depend on the number and types of permits required by hauliers, which journeys are exempt and the cost of administering a permits scheme—if there is a permit scheme, which of course will be subject to the negotiations. We want to keep fees as low as possible and in the region of the existing permit fees. The noble Baroness referred to a few examples. The annual ECMT permit which allows any numbers of journeys costs around £133 and a single journey bilateral permit costs £8. However, as the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, pointed out, we need to take into account how that will affect small and medium-sized hauliers.
On the capability for the checking of these permits within the UK, there will obviously be a need, should we have a permit system, for them to be checked. As part of the spending statement today, the DfT has received £75.8 million to deliver its EU exit programme. That will include reconfiguring DVSA and looking at that in detail. Again—I apologise for repeating myself—until we know the outcome of the negotiations we are not going to know by how much the capability of DVSA needs to increase and we will have to wait to see the exact costs.
The DfT is working with the Treasury to determine the appropriate level of fees. This will be included in the regulations to allow scrutiny by Parliament. As I say, we are doing everything we can to keep the cost low. It is a key consideration for UK hauliers and we are working closely with them as these plans develop. We will be working closely with small and medium-sized enterprises as well in order to keep these costs as low as possible. I hope that explanation demonstrates why we have a fees clause in the Bill and exactly what we will be using it for. I hope that the noble Baroness will agree that the clause should stand part of the Bill.