Clause 10
Finance Bill
1:45 pm
Julia Goldsworthy (Shadow Chief Secretary To the Treasury, Treasury; Falmouth and Camborne, Liberal Democrat)
Obviously, the west country is well represented on the Liberal Democrat Benches, but I would intend the amendment’s impact to be very limited, because ultimately we want to support the benefit that other environmental taxes would have. I would expect only a very small number of communities or none at all in my own constituency to be included, because I represent the most densely populated part of Cornwall and it has relatively good transport links. The people in my area will not have to travel as far as others, and the differentials in petrol pump prices are not as great as elsewhere. However, in the highlands and islands of Scotland, where there are differentials of 20p a litre, the measure will clearly make a significant difference.
I say to the hon. Member for South-West Hertfordshire that the intention is to limit the impact of the amendment. It would target only communities and people who have no alternative to the car and for whom, even if public transport were available, it would be less fuel efficient, because there would be a bus driving one person around, rather than one person using their own car.
The point, with which I hope the Minister will sympathise, is that there is a need to recognise the difficulties that very, very rural communities face, and unfortunately there is not recognition of that fact at the moment. As I said, the impact of the amendment is intended to be very limited. Unfortunately, it does not matter how big the stick is, those communities will not be able to respond. All that people in those communities will see is fuel prices taking up a larger and larger part of their disposable income.
It is important, if the Government are to continue with their policy—I hope that they do—that the difficulties faced by those people are recognised. There are existing forms of duty, such as fuel duty and vehicle excise duty. The Government have said that in the long run they would like to move to road user pricing. Again, we would support them in that, because it would be the most efficient way of ensuring that the people least able to change their behaviour were not penalised unfairly, but in the meantime, if we are continuing with changes to fuel duty and vehicle excise duty, I make a plea to the Minister that—