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10.38 pm
Mr. Nick Gibb (Bognor Regis and Littlehampton): For the record, I should like to declare an interest, which I have put in the Register of Members' Interests, concerning my overseas visit in September to meet representatives of oil companies, oil regulators and the Department of Energy in Washington at the invitation of the United States oil industry.
I listened carefully to the Minister's comments in introducing the order. I also listened carefully last week to the Chancellor's pre-Budget statement. The whole country watched hour by hour as the fuel protest in September brought the country to a complete standstill.
In addition to the order that the right hon. Lady proposes, another key document in the saga, as she mentioned, is the memorandum of understanding between the Government and the oil companies, police and road hauliers. All those documents--the memorandum, the order and the pre-Budget statement--deal with the symptoms of a problem, rather than the problem itself. The root of the issue is the Chancellor's decision from his first Budget onwards inexorably to continue to raise taxation on fuel, mortgages, marriage, pension funds, waste, insurance and property--extra taxation even on people over the age of 60. The total tax burden has added £670 a year to the tax bill of a typical family--over the lifetime of the Parliament £1,500 has been added to the bill of every taxpayer in Britain.
In four Budgets, the Government have increased fuel duty by 15p per litre, from 46p to 61p per litre. That is the principal reason for the increase in the petrol price at the pumps, from 59p when Labour came to power, to 82p now. There has been a 23p increase, of which 15p has been caused by taxation.
I shall put Labour's fuel duty increases in the order that they were made, starting with the earliest first. In July 1997, there was a 4p increase. That was followed, eight months later, in March 1998, with a 4.4p increase. In March 1999, there was a 3.8p increase. Finally, in March 2000, there was a 1.9p increase. That is the correct order of the increases. Now, let us see who in the Government got it right, and who got it right in the fastest time. In fact, no one in the Government got it right at all. There is a tedious dishonesty in the way in which Ministers seek to hide the 15p fuel duty increase.
Mr. Nigel Beard (Bexleyheath and Crayford): Does the hon. Gentleman recognise that, in the past two years, the oil price per litre has increased by 19p, of which tax
accounts for only 2p, whereas the international oil market accounts for 17p of that increase? The "information" that the hon. Gentleman is giving us is, therefore, no more than fatuous propaganda.
Mr. Gibb: No. The point that I am making is that the Government are deliberately issuing false and fatuous propaganda on the issue. The hon. Gentleman is making the very point--almost verbatim--that the Minister for the Environment made in the House a few weeks ago. The Minister said:
- Since the March 1999 Budget, petrol prices in the UK have risen from 66p per litre to about 80p per litre today, an increase of 14p, but only a very small percentage---[Official Report, 25 October 2000; Vol. 355, c. 235.]
Mr. Gibb: I accept your point, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I am just making some key preparatory remarks before dealing with the order itself.
Mr. Derek Twigg (Halton): When will we get to the order?
Mr. Gibb: We shall get to it in due course.
An example of the Government's false propaganda is that, although they accept that there has been a 14p increase since the March 1999 Budget, they say that, of that 14p, only 1.9p was caused by the 2000 Budget. Although that is correct, in the three previous Budgets, regardless of the world oil price, there were duty increases amounting to 13p. If those extra duties had not been imposed, petrol at the pump would be 15p per litre less than it is today. The dishonest use of statistics is one of the things that people find so distasteful about politicians and why there is such cynicism about United Kingdom politics and politicians.
Mr. John Bercow (Buckingham): Will my hon. Friend give way?
Mr. Gibb: No; I should like to make some progress before Mr. Deputy Speaker reprimands me again.
People also find the yah-boo arguments irritating. Of course the fuel duty escalator started under the previous Government. However, it started as an honest attempt to reduce fuel use and CO 2 emissions.
Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman guessed aright. I would be grateful if he would now confine his remarks to the order that we are debating.
Mr. Gibb: I shall obey your strictures, Mr. Deputy Speaker.
The point is that this is a self-made, self-inflicted crisis, and the Government are using the order to try to deal with its symptoms.
The order contains far-reaching powers for the Government. Under the order, as the Minister said, the Secretary of State may provide
- for regulating or prohibiting the production, supply, acquisition or use of--
(a) any of the following substances
The order was made by Her Majesty on 11 September, as requested by the Minister, and laid before Parliament on 12 September. The House returned from the summer recess on 23 October. It has taken the Government until today, 13 November, before arranging for the order to be debated. Nevertheless, in her speech, the right hon. Lady said that the Government took the order very seriously indeed.
The order contains extensive powers which, frankly, should have been debated at the earliest possible time--24 October, or at least in our first week back. In fact, they should have been debated on the recall of Parliament, which my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition called for in September. If the right hon. Lady is serious in her expressed concern that this is the first time that those powers have been used since the 1976 Act came into force, the Government should have recalled Parliament. The fuel protest was a crisis and these are serious powers. Why were the powers not debated earlier? Are they being debated today simply because if they were not, in six days' time they would lapse, under section 3 of the Energy Act 1976, which requires them to be debated within 28 days of the Order in Council when the House is sitting?
If passed, the order lasts for a full 12 months. Could the Minister tell the House about the Government's intentions regarding those powers? If it becomes clear over the next few weeks that they are no longer needed, will she move an order to revoke them? If not, why not? The Opposition would have had no objection to the powers being sought during what was clearly an emergency in September, and we shall not oppose the order tonight, but would it not make more sense simply to exercise those powers when they are needed, rather than now, when it is unclear whether they are required?
The exercise of the powers under the order appears to be something of a shambles. The main order was laid on 12 September. At 4 pm that same day, the Motor Fuel (Designated Filling Stations and Fuel Depots) Order was laid. That was revoked at 2 pm the next day and replaced by the Liquid and Gaseous Fuel (Designated Filling Stations and Fuel Depots) Order which, in turn, was amended some two hours later by the Liquid and Gaseous Fuel (Designated Filling Stations and Fuel Depots) (No. 2) Order.
Some 23 and a half hours after that, both orders were replaced by the Liquid and Gaseous Fuel (Designated Filling Stations and Fuel Depots) (No. 3) Order, which itself lasted three and a half hours until 7 pm on 14 September when the No. 4 order replaced the No. 3 order. The No. 4 order was, in turn, replaced by the No. 5 order at 6 pm the following day.
I am pleased to tell the House that that order lasted a full two weeks until 4 pm on 29 September when the Liquid and Gaseous Fuel (Designated Filling Stations and Fuel Depots) (No. 5) (Revocation) Order was made, revoking the whole lot. Could the Minister explain what
was going on with all the orders and revocations? Was it just a case of "Don't panic, Captain Mainwaring. Issue something--anything"? Were the original lists of designated filling stations and fuel depots contained in the earlier orders simply out of date and therefore wrong? Was that the reason for the numerous reissues?What do those statutory instruments achieve? From reading them, it is not clear precisely what powers are being exercised. Issuing a list of so-called designated stations does not actually achieve anything unless it is accompanied by powers specifying who can use such filling stations, who is entitled to take fuel and who is not. I can see no such powers being exercised under any of the six statutory instruments. Could the Minister explain?
Is not the truth that the orders, as drafted, have no legal effect? The noble Lord Sainsbury said in the other place that the Secretary of State
- subsequently made orders designating priority retail fuel sites and priority purposes to facilitate the orderly return to normal when protests ended.
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