Clause 8 - Threshold for reduced general rate
Finance Bill
5:45 pm
Mr Michael Jack (Fylde, Conservative)
I do not know where new cars are concerned, but the arrangement appears arbitrary. I am always interested to know how decisions are reached. Perhaps the Financial Secretary will tell us why 1,549 cu cm was alighted on. For older cars, why is not the proposal for petrol as generous as for diesel? Many diesel car engines have more cubic centimetres than that, because they have a lower brake horsepower output, but have lower CO2 outputs than vehicles that benefit from the proposals. It appears somewhat harsh, if the Government's real interest is in carbon dioxide emissions, to hit diesel cars.
I should have said, incidentally, that I run a diesel car, so I have some experience of the matter, but I do not plead the case from a selfish point of view; I plead it from the rational point of view of the stated objective, which was supposedly to reduce carbon dioxide emissions.