The Government’s Budget statements rarely have the remotest consequence for cycling. Now, the first all-Tory budget in 19 years brings a proposal that’s bad news for people who cycle – in a way I’m sure neither the Chancellor nor the Treasury intend.

From 2017, George Osborne is abolishing the Vehicle Excise Duty (VED) exemption for low-emission cars. Getting rid of the incentive to run an electric or super-low emission car sounds bonkers without some context.

Firstly, the proposal will only apply to new vehicles, so existing cars will be continue on the existing rates.

Secondly, by 2017 75 per cent of new cars will be low-emission anyway. Clearly, extending VED exemption to 75 per cent of new cars would be folly. Instead, three new bands will apply and around 95 per cent of cars are expected to fall within the “standard” band at £140 a year. There will also be zero emission and premium bands.

So the scheme is better than it at first seems – except that the old VED will be replaced with a new Roads Fund.

Says Osborne: “I will return this tax to the use for which it was originally intended. I am creating a new Roads Fund. From the end of this decade, every single penny raised in VED in England will go into that fund to pay for the sustained investment our roads so badly need. Tax paid on people’s cars will be used to improve the roads they drive on.”

This might sound fine and dandy, but for people who cycle it might just legitimise the abuse they already suffer. How often does the anti-cycling brigade wheel out the tired old rant: “Get off the road! You don’t pay road tax!” This is regardless of the fact that the majority of people who cycle also drive and pay VED. The benefit of people who cycle is that we pay VED without taking up precious road space!

Road tax is a red herring anyway. There’s no such thing as road tax at the moment. There’s only VED, which is completely unrelated to any road user’s rights to the road. VED is a tax on all motor vehicles, not a tax on roads or a fee to use them. The amount raised by VED (£6bn) falls way short of the annual spend on roads (£9bn) not to mention peripheral effects such as congestion (estimated at £30bn).

Motorists do not pay directly for roads: road budgets are paid out of local and national taxation – by everyone (including cyclists). The Treasury has never ringfenced taxes for specific purposes. This was a battle fought and won 80 years ago by Sir Winston Churchill, saying in 1936: “Entertainments may be taxed; public houses may be taxed; racehorses may be taxed…and the yield devoted to the general revenue. But motorists are to be privileged for all time to have the whole yield of the tax on motors devoted to roads? Obviously this is all nonsense...an outrage upon the sovereignty of Parliament and common sense.”

If only Cameron and Osborne could be reminded of this. If not, they will condemn cyclists to continued small-minded abuse. Motorists can’t currently claim they pay for the roads while cyclists don’t. But from 2017, this claim will be true.

Do drivers really need more of a sense of entitlement?