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Mr. Ruffley: My hon. Friend makes a typically robust and eloquent point. Perhaps the Financial Secretary to the Treasury, once she has finished shuffling through her brief, will be able to take note of his excellent point and reply to it in her winding-up speech. What on earth do the Government think they are doing by raising the escalator in this fashion? What do they think that will do to rural communities and to poorer people who rely on cars as a necessity, not a luxury?
That brings me to the point that my hon. Friend the Member for Cotswold (Mr. Clifton-Brown) raised in relation to public transport subsidies. The £50 million was a gross insult to rural communities. I know that Labour Members may not have many regional newspapers to which they bother sending Walworth road and Mandy
towers press releases, but many of us do take a great interest in what media and newspapers in the shire counties say. They laughed the proposal for £50 million out of court. These are newspapers with no political bias of any description. [Interruption.] If hon. Members think that the East Anglian Daily Times is a party political newspaper, they are more incompetent when it comes to analysing political runes than I thought.
These are independent shire newspapers that take a dim view of the rhetoric of governing for the many, not the few, and of the Government's actions in hammering people who are least able to take on board tax increases of the sort that are outlined in the clause.
Mr. Cranston:
Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Ruffley:
I happily, but reluctantly, give way to the hon. Gentleman.
Mr. Cranston:
I thank the hon. Gentleman, perhaps reluctantly, but he took the name of my constituency in vain earlier. Before he draws his remarks to an end, will he say something about the environmental impact? He has gone on for almost 10 minutes and has not mentioned the environment once. Does he agree that transport is the fastest growing contributor to carbon dioxide emissions? Is this measure not one step--one step admittedly--in trying to reduce those emissions?
Mr. Ruffley:
As far as I am aware, the Rio targets in relation to carbon dioxide emissions were set under the previous Administration and were well on their way to being hit; indeed, I think that they were hit. Although there is always scope for environmentally friendly taxation, I am not convinced that the case has been made at all for increasing the escalator to 6 per cent. It certainly does not begin to answer the questions that those in shire counties ask about the impact on people who rely on their cars.
Many companies in rural and shire communities have fleets of vehicles. They are concerned about the impact that this unjustified tax hike to 6 per cent. and the increase in diesel will have on their businesses. The hon. Member for North Tayside (Mr. Swinney) made a good point about the impact on village shops and village retail. There is no doubt that this pernicious tax hike will affect people in rural areas. I wish that, in the spirit of openness, the Labour party would--if it is going to play with an even deck on this--admit that this petrol tax hike does cause a problem in rural areas, instead of just ignoring it, pretending that things are all right and using warm words.
The Government certainly have ambitions for a new Britain. They have ambitions to increase the 6 per cent. even more. Many of the business men I know believe that this is only the start of a smash-and-grab raid in future years. It is 6 per cent. this year. What about future years? Conservative Members know that the best way in which to cap and to stop what could be a remorseless attack, particularly on rural areas, through these tax hikes, is to support the amendment.
Mr. Dale Campbell-Savours (Workington):
I oppose the amendment, because I believe that 5 per cent. is insufficient. I support the Government's position that the figure should be higher.
Mr. Campbell-Savours:
Yes, that is higher than 5 per cent. The hon. Gentleman can count. I congratulate him. I should have gone even higher.
I want to comment on leaded petrol and the distorting effect on petrol prices arising from the profile of taxation. I drove down the Embankment the other day and stopped at the first filling station. It seems to me that a lot of misrepresentation is going on about fuels and fuel prices nationally. That may arise in part because the previous Government provided in legislation for a commitment to a 5 per cent. increase. Fortunately, we have now removed that commitment.
Leaded four-star petrol at that filling station was 73.5p a litre, while super unleaded was 79.5p. As far as the general public are concerned, the reference to unleaded petrol, although it is marked as super, implies that it complies with what we would regard as unleaded criteria. There is a distortion in the way in which such products are being marketed: the public are led to believe that they are buying an unleaded fuel when they are effectively buying a leaded fuel.
Mr. Edward Davey:
Most garages selling super unleaded also sell unleaded, which is more commonly bought by consumers and costs less than four-star.
Mr. Campbell-Savours:
I understand that, but my point is that super unleaded petrol is regarded by the general public as an unleaded fuel, but it costs 6p more than four-star petrol. Many hon. Members, including myself, will have gone into a petrol station and purchased super unleaded in error, paying 6p more than for four-star leaded, in the belief that we were protecting the environment. The reality is that purchasing the leaded fuel would have done more to protect the environment, because that fuel, as I understand it, is less damaging.
A total misrepresentation is going on at fuel pumps throughout the United Kingdom as to what super unleaded petrol is. My appeal tonight is for people to stop buying it; they are being overcharged and it is probably more damaging to the environment than the leaded four-star petrol, which is a substitute petrol.
Mr. Bercow:
I am sorry to learn that the hon. Gentleman incurred that additional cost. Is it not wrong to assume that, simply because he has such poor judgment in those matters, the same can be said of his constituents, who are probably altogether more discerning?
Mr. Campbell-Savours:
If only that were the case. My constituents fall into the same consumer trap. Perhaps they are not blessed with the hon. Gentleman's intelligence.
The question of the ceiling and how it is working relates also to diesel. Last week, I spoke about ultra-low-sulphur diesel, which, I am informed, diesel drivers should now use, but which is almost entirely unavailable in the United Kingdom. There are only a few places where it can be bought. I am in favour of as many outlets as possible acquiring the right to distribute it, and selling it at a lower price, but the problem is that they do not have access to it.
I have rung garages in my constituency and further afield in Cumbria, and they tell me that it is almost totally unavailable. My plea to the Government is: please get on to the manufacturers and tell them that the public want it, that taxpayers' interests are served by their buying it, and that the interests of the environment are served by their using it. It should be made available as soon as is humanly or physically possible. We know that the pumping facilities exist on the forecourts, and there is no reason at all why companies should not begin the process of switching pumps from diesel to the new low-sulphur diesel.
When I allude to one other little reform, I hope that you will not rule me out of order, Sir Alan. I know that I am getting right to the margin of your forbearance.
We shall raise additional revenue from the tax increase that is being introduced, and that is welcome for environmental reasons, but there is another way of protecting the environment. We must make sure that people pay: that they get their MOT certificates, pay their road fund duties and insure their vehicles. Why do we not simply have one disc, in three parts, with three different inserts, dealing with vehicle excise duty, MOT and insurance? If we did that, and the date of expiry was marked on each part of the disc, a great number of vehicles, many of which are responsible in the greater part for the pollution that we so deprecate, would immediately be removed from the road.
Many vehicles are on the road that should not be. Let us not only raise taxes but enforce measures that already exist, because my view is that we could thereby be more environmentally friendly.
The Chairman of Ways and Means (Sir Alan Haselhurst):
My view is that the hon. Gentleman just about got away with that.
Mr. Edward Davey:
I am glad to hear you say that, Sir Alan, because I want to support what the hon. Member for Workington (Mr. Campbell-Savours) said: there are ways in which we can force some of the polluting cars off the road.
I understand that the fines for not having a car properly insured are fairly minimal and that, in some cases, especially for youngsters, whose insurance costs would be significant, they are almost the same as the costs of a decent motor insurance policy. That seems ludicrous, as it offers no incentive to be insured. Increasing the fines might have a similar effect to the proposal of the hon. Member for Workington.
I want to cast the Committee's mind back to the incisive and robust speech of the hon. Member for Bury St. Edmunds (Mr. Ruffley). He focused our minds on a key aspect of the debate: the cumulative effect of the increases in fuel duties. We should think of the increases that have already happened in the past 12 months, because, if we add them to the new increases, as he said, the increase in taxation, over and above what was planned by the previous Government, is up to £9 billion. That significant increase was not foreshadowed in the Labour manifesto.
Cumulatively, the duty on leaded petrol has gone up by 8.9p and on unleaded petrol by 8.4p. For leaded petrol, that is a 21.4 per cent. increase in less than 12 months. As I understand it, the Government's inflation forecast is
about 2.5 to 3.5 per cent. When they increase duty by more than 20 per cent. and claim that the increase is 6 per cent. above inflation on an escalator basis, they seem to be more pessimistic about the prospects for inflation than we have seen in their macro-economic forecasts. The cumulative effect of the two Budgets and two Finance Bills amounts to a swingeing increase.
6.45 pm
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