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Mr. Gray: I am grateful to you, Mr. Martin.
I am also grateful for the lies, damned lies and statistics offered from across the Chamber. There are, of course, a million different ways of cutting that particular piece of cake, but in recent years--since the 1950s or 1960s--the price of petrol has increased by far more than the rate of inflation, yet during that time road usage has increased even more. That demonstrates that there is hardly any relationship between the price of petrol and the use of the roads. If there were, road usage would presumably have declined in recent years, and anybody who walks along the streets of London can see that that has not happened.
The hon. Member for Wimbledon (Mr. Casale) wondered whether I might be able to use my car more or less according to the price of petrol. That shows where he comes from. He speaks as an urban Member, interested only in urban people--his constituents, who can always jump on to a bus or a train. He was right to draw attention to the fact that my constituents in the country could not reduce their car use even if they wished to.
Even if petrol cost £100 a gallon, my constituents, such as the old people who live in my village or the farmers who live down 10-mile drives, would still need their cars to get to the shops or to get their children to school, irrespective of the cost. The hon. Gentleman is right to say that country dwellers such as those whom I represent could not use their cars much less, but would be severely damaged by a continued increase in the escalator.
Here is one more quotation from the road haulage industry. A letter from Brian Yeardley Continental Ltd. says:
What similar activities shall we soon see in Calais? In that case it would not be smuggling, but if someone wants to take his lorry from Dover to Aberdeen and back, he does not have to fill it up in Dover. He can fill it up in
Calais, before it crosses the channel--and the operators have made it perfectly plain that that is what they will do. The Road Haulage Association is giving out something called the flagging out pack, which gives advice on how to do that and save enormous sums, not only on diesel but on VAT. I realise that VAT is not the subject of the clause, but it does parallel damage.
Let us compare what the haulage industry is telling us with what the Minister of Transport is quoted as having said recently--a telling quotation, that shows us where the Budget comes from and what the Government are thinking:
There is another aspect of the debate that I, as a member of the Select Committee on Environment, Transport and Regional Affairs, with a keen interest in environmental matters, find worrying. The argument has been advanced, both in the debate and in Treasury papers, that the purpose of the escalator is environmental. The Government say that it is nothing to do with income, or even with schools and hospitals, apart from as a small postscript. Apparently, the main reason why they want to keep the escalator going is to achieve their Kyoto targets.
In his rather limp opening remarks, the Chief Secretary said something like, "We are determined to achieve Kyoto. We haven't yet achieved it, but the Conservatives have shown that they are no longer signed up to it." He was wrong, for several reasons.
Anybody who knows anything about the Kyoto targets knows that we are already close to achieving the 12.5 per cent. reduction for which we signed up. Nothing further was needed in the Budget. To all intents and purposes, the target has been achieved, although that had nothing to do with cars and vehicles, but was a result of the dash for gas.
Mr. Gray:
The hon. Gentleman may shake his head, but according to the current figures, about 10.5 or10.75 per cent. has already been achieved. We have nearly another 2 per cent. to go, but most people estimate that that will easily be achieved. That is why the Labour party, and the Deputy Prime Minister in particular, have said that 12.5 per cent. can easily be achieved, and that we are determined to aim for 20 per cent.
The 12.5 per cent. reduction can be achieved without the escalator. We do not need it, so the straightforward hypocrisy of the Government becomes plain. They say that we are trying to save the planet and achieve our Kyoto targets, although any environmentally aware observer knows that the British target is already within sight.
The fuel duty escalator merely masquerades as an environmental tax. Indeed, many of the environmental taxes now being discussed by the Economic Secretary
to the Treasury will also be merely masquerading. The Government should be straightforward and say "We need more money, so we are going to do this, that and the other." It is disgraceful for them to dress their taxes up as environmentally beneficial.
The Government have made great play of the fact that the Conservatives introduced the escalator. They are right; we did. However, one gets on an escalator because one is on the ground floor. We were on the ground floor then; we had a huge carbon dioxide emission problem and our petrol price was one of the lowest in the world. We got on the escalator, and it was supposed to clock up increases for two or three years, until 2000.
However, nobody in his right mind gets on an escalator to stay on it for ever. It was astonishing to hear the Minister say that he expected the 6 per cent. escalator to continue for ever. One of my hon. Friends has already pointed out that, in that case, the price of petrol will have doubled in 10 years. My maths is not up to working out what the percentage increase will be after that.
The Minister talked as if the escalator would go on for ever, through the roof. We have continually challenged him to deny that, but he continues to talk in those terms. We would have got off the escalator when we got to the top, which by our own predictions would have been in 2000--this financial year.
Mr. Leslie:
Will the hon. Gentleman define exactly what the image of getting off the escalator means? Is he saying that fuel duty should be frozen now?
Mr. Gray:
Of course not; I am saying that we should get off the escalator now. In other words, broadly speaking, fuel duty should rise in line with inflation. That is, broadly speaking, the approach--[Hon. Members: "Is that party policy?"] It is right that our Treasury Front-Bench spokesmen should be cautious in their approach to such matters, but I speak from the Back Benches, and I am happy to call for such a freeze even without any form of endorsement from my Front Bench colleagues. None the less, they have made it plain that they oppose the escalator this year.
Hon. Members can take it from me that because the Conservative party cares about the freight industry and about rural drivers, when we are in government in three years' time there will be enormous pressure from Conservative Members against our returning to the escalator.
Sir Robert Smith (West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine):
The problem that I have with the Conservatives' current claim to care is that in 1992 the Conservative party campaigned against the idea of a fuel duty escalator but then proceeded to implement one.
Mr. Gray:
The hon. Gentleman has found some conflicting evidence. All day we have been told that we were committed to the escalator in 1992-94, but the hon. Gentleman has apparently discovered a commitment by us to get off it. I am delighted to hear about it, because that is what I propose. Perhaps our policy has taken several years to implement.
Mr. Gray:
I have already dealt with the hon. Gentleman's point.
I must not become flippant, because this is an important subject. Of course we were committed to the escalator once, but then we introduced it and it did its job. Thefact that we so wholeheartedly supported the Kyoto commitments, and the fact that the United Kingdom is near to achieving them, is testimony to what the escalator has done.
" Buying Diesel in the UK our company would spend at least £1,057,000 more annually than our competitors abroad".
It was interesting to hear the hon. Member for South Down (Mr. McGrady), talking about petrol and diesel being smuggled across the Irish border. I saw that myself when I was in South Armagh recently with the armed forces parliamentary scheme. Through telescopes we watched huge petrol lorries crossing the border, entirely unchecked by the police or the Army. Such operations form a significant part of the activity of the IRA.
"UK operators do not suffer from any serious disadvantage over foreign competitors".
Presumably that is why tens of thousands of them are blocking our streets--because they do not suffer from any disadvantage, and are perfectly happy to pay whatever the Government want them to pay for diesel. That is unbelievable, astonishing nonsense. It is amazing that the Minister responsible for transport should be able to stand up and say such a thing.
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