Spuds - The UK tax payer does pay for ATC. When the government bail out NATS as they are not making enough profit, all of us who pay any form of tax pay for it.
Safe skies, means safe ground as well. To follow your argument, people who have their houses flown over should pay for ATC, to ensure their safety from falling aircraft! That is the crux of it. If ATC makes it safe for all of us, we should all pay and that should come from tax, not from discrete charges that take an awful lot of money to administer in the first place.
I fly commercially and I like the protection of class A. I also fly little aircraft and I like being able to bimble around without having to talk to anyone. The controlled airspace in this country is for the benefit of the commercial traffic and the military. Just go to Newcastle or Leeds where thay make the little aircraft hold on downwind and base all the time while the commercials get away, when in reality they could mix them safely. Why should the little guys pay for the "service"?
The PFA rally reularly sees 1500 aircraft land a day, in VFR, in pretty much radio silence - do we really need controllers all the time? Don't get me wrong, I have a large amount of respect for controllers and thier job, however control is not always appropriate.
Separation of VFR and IFR traffic in less restricted types of airspace would be a lot easier, if the CAA actually printed charts that showed instrument holds, and approaches. At the moment the VFR guys don't know where to look, unless they have IFR training and materials to hand.
Many people died in the world wars to uphold freedom, if it is taken away by commercial needs, then we have lost it.
Commercial types don't pay tax on fuel - but they do pay enroute charges. Little guys pay tax on fuel and no ATC charges. Seems fair to me.