Clause 8
Finance (No. 2) Bill
6:45 pm
Rob Marris (Wolverhampton South West, Labour)
I have a brief question based on the draft regulations to which the hon. Gentleman referred. Why are road surfacing vehicles included? It seems to me that most roads built in the UK are built directly or indirectly at the behest of the Government and financed by them. It appears cursorily that there is a swings and roundabouts effect in this case. Either those vehicles are not exempt, and therefore the cost of building the road is higher because they have to pay more for fuel, or they are exempt, and the costs of building roads are somewhat lower.
In the first case, of course, the Government will be getting the money back through taxation because of higher fuel prices. However, that removes an incentive for operators and constructors of road surfacing vehicles to make them more fuel efficient because they get to run them on cheaper fuel. It may appear to be a matter of swings and roundabouts in the context of total Government expenditure, but whether it comes through a lower bid price for a road with lower fuel costs or a higher bid price with higher costs, environmentally it is not a good idea to lessen the incentive for those building and operating road surfacing vehicles by allowing them to pay red diesel prices rather than full prices.