The Telegraph can disclose that the Government is pushing ahead with plans for a national road-pricing scheme, including testing "spy in the sky" technology.
Eight areas of the country have been selected by ministers for secret pay-per-mile trials which will begin in 2010 and are expected to pave the way for tolls on motorways.
Motorists face paying up to £1.30 a mile during peak periods on the busiest roads.
Gordon Brown was thought to be against national road pricing, a flagship policy of the Blair administration.
But the detailed level of planning now underway indicates the issue it set to become a key battleground in the next general election – which is likely to coincide with the trials beginning.
It will leave Ruth Kelly, the Transport Secretary, particularly vulnerable as she defends her marginal Bolton West constituency.
The Daily Telegraph has learnt that eight areas - Leeds, North Yorkshire, Milton Keynes and Buckinghamshire, south west London, Suffolk and Essex – have been selected for the trials.
Initially, in January 2010, one hundred cars in each area will trial the new technology – in many cases entailing placing black boxes to allow their movements to be tracked - but members of the public will be invited to join the pilots in June 2010.
The Government is close to signing contracts with four companies who will run the national trials, testing not only the technology which will be fitted to the cars, but also the bureaucracy needed to run a system including sending out bills.
In most cases, the trials will involve a satellite tracking a vehicle's movements. Motorists will then receive a monthly or weekly bill which will vary depending on when and where they drove.
Three more companies will be paid to double check the system, ensuring that the charging machinery is legal and that the trials are properly monitored.
Last night, the Conservatives condemned the Government plans and called on Ruth Kelly, the Transport Secretary, to abandon the scheme.
Theresa Villiers, the shadow Transport Secretary, said: "It seems that Labour's unpopular plans for a national road pricing scheme are alive and well.
"They are determined to press ahead with their untried and untested spy-in-the-sky national project even though it looks like an IT disaster waiting to happen. Ruth Kelly should start listening to drivers and scrap these pilots for a national road pricing scheme that is unnecessary and unwanted."
The Treasury earmarked millions of pounds for the pilots in the budget and Chancellor Alistair Darling believes the scheme could be crucial in cutting congestion in the long-term.
However, the disclosure of the trials will raise fears that motorists are set to be hit with another increase in driving taxes, despite earlier assurances from the Government that
The Daily Telegraph has been campaigning for the Government to drop plans to increase vehicle excise duty for millions of drivers and to freeze fuel duty.
British motorists already pay some of the highest taxes in the world and with Government finances under severe pressure the pay-as-you-drive scheme could prove a valuable source of extra revenue for the Treasury.
It is understood that there is greater enthusiasm in the Treasury than the Department for Transport for road pricing.
However it is not known if the scheme would entirely replace existing motoring taxes or be introduced on top of them. Ministers have previously pledged cuts in other duties if the scheme is introduced.
The Department for Transport insists that the pilots are designed "to inform thinking about motorway capacity".
Tony Blair was keen on road pricing and believed that the scheme was crucial to cut congestion by charging lower amounts for those driving outside rush hour. Environmentalists have also supported the scheme as those driving less pay lower taxes.
When the scheme was first floated by the Blair administration 1.8 million people signed a petition on the Downing Street website calling on the Government to abandon the scheme.
Last night, Peter Roberts, who led the initial protests, said: "If the Government was true to its word and was kicking road pricing into the long grass, why is it running trials?
"Ministers have said that national road pricing is no longer on the agenda. So either they are wasting millions of pounds of taxpayers' money or they are not being honest with voters."
The effectiveness of the charging schemes in cutting congestion has been undermined by the London congestion charge. The £8 a day charge has done little to cut congestion in the capital and other cities are now more sceptical about following London's scheme.
Greater Manchester's congestion scheme will shortly be put to a referendum of voters in the 10 participating council areas. Unless it is backed by a majority of those polled in at least seven local authorities, the scheme will be dropped.
Earlier this year Ruth Kelly insisted that charging schemes would be limited to areas where congestion was greatest.
A spokeswoman for the Department for Transport said the trials had been announced last year and did not mean road pricing was going ahead.
She said: "We have been absolutely clear that any proposal for national road pricing would need to address the legitimate concerns people have.
"We're a very long way from that which is why our priority now and over the next decade is on tackling congestion where it is experienced most - in our cities and on our motorways."
UK Lockdown point of view
Not only are the government mis-leaders looking to introduce even more surveillance technology to tighten up the control grid that already restricts the few freedoms that we still have left, to make it even worse we are being forced to pay for the privilege just like with the ID cards and all of the other enslavement technology that is being gradually introduced into our society.
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