Peter Hendy, chair of the Commission for Integrated Transport, said of today's Budget:

"On transport, this Budget takes a number of welcome steps in a direction which the Commission strongly supports, because it will help to start to tackle the serious problems the UK now faces, among them climate change and congestion.

"We particularly welcome the 2020 emissions target for all new cars of 100g CO2/km, which we recommended in our own climate change report last year, as well as the revision of VED to encourage more environmentally-friendly cars, which we recommended in the same report.

"CfIT also strongly supports the trials for road pricing technology, as a long time supporter of pricing for road use. Following on from the recent announcement about pricing hard shoulder lane opening, we believe this is another very positive step in the right direction".

CfIT's report on climate change can be found on its website, www.cfit.gov.uk, along with its previous support for road pricing and hard shoulder running.