MOTORISTS could still be handing over cash to cross the Severn Bridges in 2020, according to a gloomy forecast by transport minister Stephen Hammond.

The clearest hint yet that tolls could still be with us after the bridges return to public ownership came in a letter to the Welsh Affairs Select Committee – chaired by Monmouth MP Davies – from Mr Hammond on transport links between England and the Principality.

He said: "Under the Severn Bridges Act 1992 the Government is entitled to recover costs falling outside the the concession agreement through tolling after the end of he concession."

The Department for Transport estimates it will take between one and two years to clear the debt which has most recently been put at £88 million although the figure has varied wildly between £19 million and £112 million.

The crossings are expected to be handed back in 2018 from the consortium which operates the bridges. Despite popular belief, the bridges are only 35 per cent owned by a French company, the rest being split between investment banks and the company which built the second bridge.

Mr Davies said: "We were hugely disappointed that the Government did not make clear during our 2010 inquiry on the Severn Crossings toll that the debt could increase by such an order of magnitude, to such a level. We were also concerned that the accumulation of such a high level of debt would delay the reduction in the level of the tolls that we have repeatedly called for.

"This committee has repeatedly called for the the level of the tolls to be reduced or removed at the earliest opportunity and there is still no clear indication of when this will happen. The tolls are detrimental to the Welsh economy, which depends on links across the border, and there are negative 'side effects' such as the diversion of heavy traffic through smaller, residential roads.

"The focus of the Government should now be on providing more clarity about its proposals and the timetable for when the crossings revert to public ownership, and we will expect some answers from the Minister for Transport when he gives evidence to us on this issue on June 18."