Fuel Prices and the Cost of Living

Debate between Angela Eagle and Greg Knight

Wednesday 16th March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Ms Angela Eagle (Wallasey) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House recognises that rising world oil, food and commodity prices are increasing the cost of living and adding to the squeeze on families on low and middle incomes across Britain; believes this has been compounded by the Government’s decision to increase VAT to 20 per cent., which will cost a family with children an annual average of £450, has helped to push up the consumer prices index annual inflation to 4 per cent. and, according to the House of Commons Library, is adding £1.35 to the cost of filling up a vehicle with a 50 litre tank; notes that the AA announced last week that the cost of unleaded petrol has now reached an average of £6 a gallon and that the fuel duty stabiliser promised in the 2010 Conservative Party manifesto has not yet been announced or implemented; further notes that the previous administration regularly postponed planned fuel duty rises when world oil prices were increasing sharply, as they are now; and demands that the Government takes immediate steps to reverse January’s VAT rise on road fuels, using the extra £800 million from the bank levy and securing the appropriate EU derogation, in order to provide relief to hard-pressed motorists and, at the time of the Budget, looks again at the annual duty rise due in April.

It is a great pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Walton (Steve Rotheram), whose ten-minute rule Bill seeks to address an issue that is close to the hearts of all of us from Merseyside.

Times are increasingly tough for millions of ordinary hard-working people and families in our country. Since May last year, we have seen this Government embark on a reckless gamble with our future prosperity. Public expenditure is being cut too deep and too fast, and up and down the country millions of people are really beginning to feel the pinch. Families are facing the biggest squeeze in their living standards for 80 years, and some economists are warning that it could get still worse. Real wages are static, even falling. With recruitment freezes, job losses and rising unemployment, people are right to be worried about the future.

[Mr Greg Knight (East Yorkshire) (Con)]

Will the hon. Lady help the House? Over the past 13 years, in every aspect of Government policy, the Labour Government were deliberately and decisively anti-motorist. Does the motion before the House today represent a seismic shift in policy, or is it, as we suspect, a transient spat of opportunism?