GREEN Party MSPs ensured the Scottish Executive won a vote last night which means that tolls will stay on the Forth and Tay road bridges.

In a hard-fought vote at Holyrood, six Green Party members and independents Dennis Canavan and Margo MacDonald proved crucial to ministers for the first time, after nine government back benchers revolted.

One of the rebels, Scott Barrie, resigned his unpaid post as Labour whip over the issue. Forth Road Bridge tolls are a hot topic for his Dunfermline West constituents,.

The latest revolt in the executive parties unusually included both Labour and Liberal Democrats.

All four Labour MSPs representing Fife seats voted against ministers, in favour of an SNP motion for abolition of tolls on the Forth and Tay bridges. So did Kate Maclean from Dundee West. Of the two Labour MSPs for North-East Scotland, Marlyn Glen voted against her party leadership and Richard Baker abstained.

Among the LibDems, former minister and North-East Fife MSP Iain Smith rebelled, as did Mid-Scotland and Fife MSP Andrew Arbuckle. All of them faced a direct threat from the SNP and Tories that their support for tolls would have been highlighted in the spring election campaign.

The Greens left it unclear until late in the day whether they would back the executive in its option of retaining tolls on the bridges, arguing instead for their preferred option of a toll system that deters car use with more targeting. The smaller parties were under pressure from senior executive figures throughout the afternoon, as whips counted heads.

The tolls issue became highly politicised after the executive paid millions of pounds to remove tolls from the Skye and Erskine bridges, while insisting the east coast bridges should remain tolled.

The stakes rose when last year's Dunfermline West by-election made the future of the Forth bridge a dominant issue in Fife politics. The executive has since announced that it is planning to build a replacement crossing and First Minister Jack McConnell said yesterday it would be wrong to remove tolls before a decision on how to meet the bill, estimated at £1bn.

The SNP and Conservatives are committed to removing tolls and voted together on the issue yesterday, However, it is not clear what LibDems and Labour will promise in their election manifestos this spring. One likely option is the removal of Tay Bridge tolls, while keeping them for the Forth to limit congestion at the traffic bottleneck.

Making the case for abolition in yesterday's debate, the SNP's Tricia Marwick said that Fife faced discrimination unlike any other part of Scotland, in that the two main roads into it are tolled.

Transport Minister Tavish Scott countered that removing tolls would increase traffic and congestion, and lead to longer journey times.

Other recent rebellions by executive parties have been mainly by Labour back benchers. Last week, the executive had to twist arms to stop a bill going through, promoted by Labour MSP Bill Butler, that would have led to health boards being directly elected.

Forced by the SNP into a vote last December on Britain's nuclear deterrent, Labour's Malcolm Chisholm resigned as Communities Minister.

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