Does this figure of £1.6million include the military ATC as well? If so then I'd argue that as a tax payer (ahem...ok well I'm not, but many GA pilots are
) then you're entitled to a service, workload permitting.
I'd also argue that airlines shouldn't grumble too much as providing a Radar service to the GA fleet adds to the safety of the fare paying passenger.
I would be prepared to pay for a decent service, not on a per-use basis but an annual (or BI annual) lump sum. Increase my licence fee to cover it if they want, or charge me yearly for my RT licence, but I expect value for money. Value for money in my book would include a guaranteed service, American style VFR flight following (with airspace transit clearances automatically given, or avoiding vectors etc....), and ease of use.
Trouble is, as we have just seen on the news recently (military wasting £3billion!) , of the money collected, they'd probably go and spend most of it on MEPs business expenses to talk about the shape of bananas or something.......
EA