Fuel Duty

Andrew Selous Excerpts

Monday 12th November 2012 Commons Chamber

[Cathy Jamieson]

I shall give way to the hon. Member for South West Bedfordshire (Andrew Selous), who I am sure is going to tell me that he supports our motion.

[Andrew Selous (South West Bedfordshire) (Con)]

Will the hon. Lady tell the House how many times her Government put up fuel duty?

[Cathy Jamieson]

I can tell the hon. Gentleman that on about 13 occasions the Labour Government decided not to put up fuel duty, to delay an increase or to change it because of economic circumstances, which was absolutely the right thing to do. We looked at the economic circumstances, and made decisions to delay or cancel when that was the right thing to do, including at the height of the economic crisis.

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[Sajid Javid]

I think that the hon. Lady needs to study the figures and understand what “percentage of GDP” means.

[Andrew Selous]

On tax avoidance, will my hon. Friend confirm that this Government have done far more than Labour ever did to reclaim tax due to the Exchequer, and does he agree that the Opposition should give credit where it is due?

[Sajid Javid]

As always, my hon. Friend is absolutely right. I will come to that later.

In the Budgets of 2009 and 2010, the shadow Chancellor and his colleagues endorsed seven rises in fuel duty between 2010 and 2014.

Oral Answers to Questions

Andrew Selous Excerpts

Tuesday 6th November 2012 Commons Chamber

[Sajid Javid]

I thank my hon. Friend for bringing that to the House’s attention, and I am not surprised to learn it, given Labour’s opposition to the benefit cap. The Government are determined to make the welfare system work in order to help people find employment, and that includes the benefit cap as well as the introduction of universal credit.

[Andrew Selous (South West Bedfordshire) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend recognise that it was virtually impossible to be long-term unemployed under the last Government, because they used to take people off the register, put them on a short-term course, and then put them back again, and is he pleased that we are being more straightforward?

[Sajid Javid]

My hon. Friend makes a good point. A number of people have made those accusations. The important thing is that youth unemployment is falling—down by 62,000 in the last quarter.

Public Service Pensions Bill

Andrew Selous Excerpts

Monday 29th October 2012 Commons Chamber

[Danny Alexander]

The hon. Gentleman will know that Lord Hutton addressed that issue. The costs of such a transition would have been enormous and very disruptive, and I think that the recommendation on the career average revalued earnings scheme is preferable from that point of view. He will also know that the new whole of Government accounts presentation of the public finances takes detailed account of the unfunded liabilities in public service pension schemes. That means that the public and the House have precisely the information that he wants transparently available, so I hope that he regards that as progress.

[Andrew Selous (South West Bedfordshire) (Con)]

On the issue of fairness, does the Chief Secretary agree that private sector workers can only look at guaranteed retirement benefits with envy, especially because most of them would have to pay more than one third of their income to achieve equivalent benefits?

[Danny Alexander]

Yes, I agree. We need better pension provision across the work force. That is why I think the national employment savings trust scheme is an important step forward. That basic pension scheme, which is available to the 12 million or so members of the country’s work force who do not have any pension provision, was recently launched by the Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions, my hon. Friend the Member for Thornbury and Yate (Steve Webb), and had its origins under the previous Government. It is a good thing all round that we have agreed a reform to public service pensions that makes significant cost savings and ensures that public servants continue to have access to among the best pension schemes available.

We all wanted to find a solution that was sustainable, affordable and fair, as did the vast majority of trade unions and negotiators for the non-unionised work force. Thanks to both sides’ commitment to constructive talks, I am pleased to say that the final proposed designs have been issued for all major public service schemes. I thank Brendan Barber and his TUC negotiating team for the mature and constructive way in which they approached these talks. It has taken many hours of discussion to get where we are today, and I am grateful that the majority of trade unions brought sensible, workable solutions to the negotiating table, rather than grandstanding. The final scheme designs reflect that hard work.

The trade unions took those scheme designs to their memberships as the best that could be achieved through discussion, and the majority of the unions have accepted the proposed agreements. The turnout in the ballots held by the unions that rejected reform was low—less than 30% in most cases—which is hardly a compelling mandate for an ongoing dispute. The Public and Commercial Services Union decided to reject the offer before it was finalised, without first seeking the views of its membership, which was not a reasonable way to approach a set of reforms affecting more than six million public servants.

There is no point in further dispute or threats of strikes regarding public service pensions. We have set out a good and fair deal that protects those rights already earned and puts fairness at the heart of future pension provisions.

LIBOR (FSA Investigation)

Andrew Selous Excerpts

Thursday 28th June 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Osborne]

First, I hope the hon. Gentleman does not mind me saying on behalf of the whole House that we very much welcome him to his place. He has the deepest sympathy of the whole House for the tragedy in his family. It is good to see him back here.

There is no estimate of the cost to individuals or consumers, and it would be very difficult to construct one. We are talking about the daily rate set, in the case of these abuses, over a three or four-year period, and it was used to set mortgage rates, loan rates and all sorts of other things. Sometimes the rate was manipulated to be too low and sometimes it was manipulated to be too high compared with the true market price. We do not have an estimate, but it is clear that, as the FSA says, the manipulation contributed to the risk to the entire financial system, which then, in effect, collapsed, not because of that, but as part of the culture we have been talking about, and the country has paid many billions for that.

[Andrew Selous (South West Bedfordshire) (Con)]

I agree with what the Chancellor said about the failure of the previous regulatory regime, but as far as the senior management of the banks are concerned, does he agree that ignorance is absolutely no defence? They should have known what was going on.

[Mr Osborne]

I completely agree. One of the things that has shocked the entire country in the aftermath of the financial crisis is how little people appeared to know about what was going on in their banks. That is why it is very important that Mr Diamond accounts for himself and his management and explains what they knew and when they knew it.

Jobs and Growth

Andrew Selous Excerpts

Thursday 17th May 2012 Commons Chamber

[Ed Balls]

I will make some progress.

Is it not the reality that we have an economy in recession and a Queen’s Speech that entirely failed to deliver on growth, jobs and investment? The Chancellor’s economic strategy is now in tatters, but have we had any admission in recent weeks that he got it wrong? We have had none. The Foreign Secretary says that British business needs to work harder, but it is this Chancellor who needs to work harder to get things right.

[Andrew Selous (South West Bedfordshire) (Con)]

rose—

[Ed Balls]

I will not give way.

Let me say this to the Chancellor. We all know why he has wanted to be a part-time Chancellor: in order to make room for his other role as the Conservative party’s part-time political strategist. But with the Budget botched, the Queen’s Speech a flop, the local elections a disaster for his party, and the economy back in recession, it is now dawning on all of us—I think it is dawning on many Conservative Members too—that he is not a very good Chancellor and not a very good political strategist either. Although should we really be surprised? This is the Chancellor who claimed to his colleagues that hiring Andy Coulson would be a triumph; that taking away child benefit from middle-incomes families would be a masterstroke; that saying that the economy was “out of the danger zone” was smart forecasting; and that cutting the top rate of tax in this Budget would wrong-foot Labour, and outfox his leadership rival Boris Johnson too. With judgment like that, perhaps the Conservative party does not need just a new political strategist; perhaps it needs a new Chancellor too.

[Andrew Selous]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Ed Balls]

No, I will not.

What an eight weeks it has been! The transformation has been startling, with the Chancellor’s long-held dreams turning to dust. He dreamed that his brilliant economic plan would bring unprecedented growth and finally deliver a Tory majority in 2015, and that a grateful Prime Minister would then stand aside, as he was finally cheered into 10 Downing street. How far away those dreams seem now!

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[Mr Osborne]

The Labour party certainly does have a different whipping operation: it sends all its information to the other political parties.

Let us get back to discussing the economy. The central argument that the shadow Chancellor was trying to make, and the argument he makes in the amendment, is that the British economy is not as strong as the German economy—that is what we are all being asked to vote on tonight. He is absolutely right about that. The British economy is not as strong as the German economy, and I will tell hon. Members why. It is because for the past decade, in the good years, Germany fixed the roof when the sun was shining and he did not when he was in government.

I will tell hon. Members what happened when the right hon. Gentleman was in government. Over the decade before the crash, Germany maintained its share of world exports while Britain’s share almost halved; Germany was selling more than £10 billion of goods a year to China while Britain was exporting one fifth of that—indeed we were exporting more to Ireland than to Brazil, India, China and Russia put together; and Germany’s manufacturing sector grew by 34%, whereas our manufacturing sector not only did not grow but halved as a share of our total output, while our over-leveraged banking sector grew by 100%. Germany, after years of sustainable economic growth, entered the financial crisis with a budget surplus. Britain, in the years that he was in charge, led a debt-fuelled consumption that drove an expansion in deficit and in debt. Under Labour we entered the financial crisis with the largest budget deficit in the G7 and left it with the largest in the G20.

Instead of making us more like Germany, the right hon. Gentleman made us more like Greece when he was in the Treasury. Britain’s economy became over-borrowed, unbalanced and unsustainable. The person more responsible for that than anyone else active in politics today, the person who encouraged the borrowing, dismantled the banking regulation and gambled the futures of 60 million people on the City of London, is sitting right over there—the shadow Chancellor. It is the people on this side of the House who are clearing up the mess he left behind.

[Andrew Selous]

Does the Chancellor agree that one of the infrastructure failures left by the previous Government was the lack of direct flights from this country to the big, growing cities of China—there are many more flights from German cities to China—and that the Government will put that right in due course?

[Mr Osborne]

I certainly think that a lack of airport capacity is a challenge for this country, but one of the good things that may emerge from the bmi merger is that more slots may become available at Heathrow to open up routes to those cities in China. My hon. Friend makes the very good observation that we have to do much more to expand our exports and our links with the Chinas and Indias of this world. One of the good things that has happened in the past few years is that our exports to China and India are up by a third, and we need to see more of that.

In his speech, the shadow Chancellor dismissed the Governor of the Bank of England as plain wrong. Who appointed the Governor? Did the recommendation ever come across the desk of the shadow Chancellor when he was the political adviser in the Treasury? [Interruption.] We will find out. Yesterday the Governor said:

“We have been through…the biggest downturn in world output since the 1930s, the biggest banking crisis in this country’s history, the biggest fiscal deficit in our peacetime history, and our biggest trading partner, the euro area, is tearing itself apart”.

My message to the House today is that addressing those problems is not easy, but nor is it impossible. I will come on to talk about the eurozone, but first we must put our own house in order, and we are making progress on doing so.

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[Andrew Selous (South West Bedfordshire) (Con)]

Up until 2007, the Government were running unsustainable deficits and had an escalating level of debt, and that was before the financial crisis hit. Governments have a choice: they can either run their finances sustainably or give up the right to economic self-government, and there are lots of examples of that in Europe at the moment.

In tough times, this Government have created 600,000 new private sector jobs. There are 370,000 more people in work now than there were at the general election and 70,000 fewer people on out-of-work benefits than when we were elected. As from last month, we have the youth contract coming into play, which will also make a difference. Furthermore, we have made progress on the deficit, which we have already cut by a quarter. That has led to low interest rates; and we should remember that every 1% increase in interest rates puts £1,000 on an average family mortgage.

Business taxes are coming down to 22%, which will be one of the lowest rates in the G20. With the patent box, we have, in effect, 10% corporation tax rates on patents that are exploited here in the UK.

I am glad to see the Minister of State, Department for Education, my hon. Friend the Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton (Mr Gibb), on the Front Bench. I pay tribute to the work that he is doing to improve school standards. What with his work, the 457,200 extra apprenticeships—an increase of 63%—and the new university technical colleges that are being rolled out, we are well on the way to building up the educated, flexible work force that this country will need for it to be an economic success in future.

People need hope and confidence in tough times, and I, for one, am fed up with the diet of gloom coming from the media about the eurozone. Yes, 48% of our trade is with the European Union, and therefore it matters, but the EU comprises only 19% of the world economy, and we need to remember that the other 81%—Asia, the Americas and Africa—is growing strongly, in some cases by 10%. The world economy is due to triple over the next 30 years, and that provides fantastic opportunities. I pay tribute to the work of UK Trade & Investment and the role of the Foreign Office in helping exporters. Last week, I spoke to people from local businesses in my constituency, and they confirmed that that help is real, practical and available on the ground.

I am well aware of the difficulties that businesses have trying to raise credit to expand. That is why the £20 billion loan guarantee scheme is helpful. I heard only yesterday that Santander will be putting 650 managers back into local branches to take local decisions. That link between the local manager and local business is very important. It has been broken by many banks in the past, and I am glad that that is being dealt with. New methods of raising finance for business, including crowd-financing and websites such as Kickstarter.com, can help as well.

The UK is one of the most entrepreneurial countries in the EU. We have 4.5 million small businesses; in 1989, there were only 2 million. However, if we were as entrepreneurial as the United States of America, there would be another 900,000 small businesses in the UK, and many of the Government’s problems would be over. We need to make the UK an enterprise hub for the whole of Europe. There is evidence that many of the small businesses that are being created naturally end up exporting, which they can do very easily through the power of the internet.

Finally, I pay credit to the Government for focusing on infrastructure funding. As I look at my constituency, I see roads being built for which we have waited years, a new busway coming, a business innovation centre, and a new university technical college.

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[Mr Byrne]

I will not give way, because there are so many points to respond to.

We know that this recession was not made by British business. It is not down to the weather, the snow or the royal wedding; it is down to the failed policy of this Government. Despite the good news we had on unemployment this week—there was a glimmer of hope—Britain’s jobs crisis has now gone on for too long. We now have more people working part time or becoming self-employed, because they will do anything to make ends meet. Long-term unemployment is surging towards the 1 million mark, the number of people out of work for two years is up to 500,000, 100,000 more people are signing on than last year, redundancies are up by 50,000, and vacancies are down by more than 10,000. Families all over Britain are facing a disaster, because of the failed policies of this Government.

This afternoon we heard those stories from all over Britain. The point was made forcefully by my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Walton (Steve Rotheram), and it was a story repeated by my hon. Friends the Members for Ogmore (Huw Irranca-Davies), for East Lothian (Fiona O'Donnell), for Blackpool South (Mr Marsden) and for Leicester South (Jonathan Ashworth). We heard in the debate this afternoon that we need growth and demand—a point made by my hon. Friends the Members for Oldham East and Saddleworth (Debbie Abrahams), for Gateshead (Ian Mearns), for Great Grimsby (Austin Mitchell) and for East Lothian. We heard how higher unemployment is hitting some communities and some regions harder than ever—that was the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Wirral South (Alison McGovern). It is hitting ethnic minorities harder than ever—that was the point made by my hon. Friends the Members for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green) and for Oldham East and Saddleworth. It is now hitting young people harder—that was the message we heard from hon. Members from all parts of the House, and it was a point made with particular force by my hon. Friends the Members for Islington South and Finsbury (Emily Thornberry) and for Birmingham, Ladywood (Shabana Mahmood).

That is why what we needed in the last Budget and in the Queen’s Speech was not excuses, but action. We needed action on bank lending—that was the point made by my hon. Friends the Members for Leeds East (Mr Mudie) and for North Ayrshire and Arran (Katy Clark), and by the hon. Members for North East Cambridgeshire (Stephen Barclay), for Northampton South (Mr Binley) and for Aberconwy (Guto Bebb). We needed action on infrastructure spending, too—that point was made with great force by my right hon. Friend the Member for Barking (Margaret Hodge), the hon. Member for Erewash (Jessica Lee), and my hon. Friends the Members for Glasgow North (Ann McKechin) and for Glasgow Central (Anas Sarwar). This absence of action is now costing this country a fortune.

[Andrew Selous]

rose—

[Mr Byrne]

Perhaps the hon. Gentleman will tell us just how much the benefits bill is increasing as a result of that failure.

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[Andrew Selous]

When the right hon. Gentleman wrote his famous note saying that there was “no money” left, what did he think the implications of that were?

[Mr Byrne]

The hon. Gentleman speaks for a party that has now put up borrowing by £150 billion more than projected. Does he know why? It is in large part because the benefits bill is not being capped by this Government—the benefits bill is going through the roof. It is set to be £25 billion higher than was projected by the end of this Parliament, with the cost of unemployment benefit set to be up by £5 billion and the cost of housing benefit set to be up by £6 billion by the end of this Parliament. I really do not know how he has the temerity to say what he has just said, given that it is his Government who are putting up debt.

The problem is that this Government have not learned the lesson that the way to bring the benefits bill down is by getting people into jobs—that is where this Government are failing. It is no wonder the people all across Britain are saying that this Prime Minister and this Chancellor have no idea how ordinary people live. The Prime Minister is riding on horses with editors of newspapers who are charged with perverting the course of justice while our young people cannot even afford a bus fare to college. We heard this afternoon just how much that bill has now become in a powerful speech from my right hon. Friend the Member for South Shields (David Miliband). We heard that youth unemployment will cost our country £30 billion over the years to come. When are this Government going to heed that lesson?

When will they look at the hit now being taken by working parents, who are struggling with child care? These parents are now losing £500 this year. No wonder 32,000 women have already had to give up work this year because they cannot afford the child care. We should look at what this Budget means for working parents—a point made with some eloquence by my hon. Friend the Member for Islington South and Finsbury and by my right hon. Friend the Member for East Ham (Stephen Timms). Such is the incompetence and such is the incoherence that families in this country are now better off on benefits than they are in a job—what a catastrophic failure of policy and what a catastrophic failure by this Chancellor.

Look at what these proposals mean for savers—people doing the right thing. Alongside the granny tax, the Government tried to sneak out in the Budget small print another £900 cut for pensioners by getting rid of the savings credit. Look at what the proposals mean for workers with disabilities. Some 11 million people in this country have disabilities. Disability Rights UK says that 25,000 people with disabilities have had to give up work this year because their support and help are being cut away from them. This Secretary of State for Work and Pensions is now administering reform of the incapacity benefit system with all the finesse of border control at Heathrow airport. It is now taking people up to 11 months to get a hearing and then, when they reach that tribunal, half the decisions are being overturned. That is not a result that he can be proud of.

Worst of all is the treatment being handed out to workers at Remploy. These are workers indirectly employed by the Secretary of State himself. Worst of all—worse than anything I have heard over the past few months—are the reported comments that he made to Remploy workers. Apparently he told them that they “are not doing any work at all. Just making cups of coffee.” That is not compassionate conservatism; it is the conservatism of contempt. The Secretary of State should apologise to those workers this afternoon. When he should have been launching a war on poverty, he has launched a war on decency.

This Government have no idea how these young people, these parents, these working mothers and these workers with disabilities are now living. They are failing on jobs, they are failing on growth, and they are out of touch, out of their depth and out of steam. We need a change of direction and Labour’s amendment today offers that. I commend it to the House.

Finance (No. 4) Bill

Andrew Selous Excerpts

Monday 16th April 2012 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Selous (South West Bedfordshire) (Con)]

rose—

[Jonathan Edwards]

I will not give way; I am sure that the Front Benchers want to get on with their summing up.

My party and I do not support the freezing or scrapping of age-related thresholds—the so-called granny tax—or the introduction of means-tested child support benefits, whether we have a cliff-edge or a taper. The point of universal child benefit is that everybody with a child receives the benefit, irrespective of their income, because it costs additional money to raise a child.

Schedule 23 of the Bill allows Northern Ireland the right to vary air passenger duty on long-haul flights, but does not provide the same for Wales and Scotland. That appears to be an ad hoc arrangement. As my party has noted consistently, what is good for one part of the British state is good for other parts. For that reason, I have tabled an amendment to the schedule that will give Wales the same powers as Northern Ireland. I look forward to debating the issue on Wednesday—and to having the support of the official Opposition, in view of the position taken by the leader of the Labour party in the Assembly.

The Budget continues the UK’s inequalities and the transfer of wealth from the poor to the rich. We cannot accept a Budget that offers no prospect of growth, and a Finance Bill that reinforces inequality.

Amendment of the Law

Andrew Selous Excerpts

Wednesday 21st March 2012 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Selous (South West Bedfordshire) (Con)]

The Budget continues policies to deal with massive issues of intergenerational fairness so that we do not leave this generation’s collective credit card bill to our children and grandchildren. The OBR’s prediction of 1 million extra jobs in the next five years is one of the aspects of the Budget about which I am most pleased. We must also remember what the Prime Minister said in the Chamber today: fewer people are on out-of-work benefits now than at the time of the general election.

The Budget has put a significant tax cut for 24 million lower and middle-income earners at centre stage. Many are women and many work part time. That is a significant move by the Government and shows that our values are to help those at the lowest end of the income scale. It is a huge move in the right direction.

Opposition Members do not seem to realise that the 50p tax rate was doing real damage to our economy. Like it or not, there are some very rich entrepreneurs around the world who can choose the economy in which they set up their businesses. Given that that rate of tax was higher than it was in every other country in the G20, it is surely right to try to attract those people back to the United Kingdom to create the jobs to get our constituents out of poverty. Cutting that rate was therefore the right thing to do. Of course, the Chancellor also told the House that other increases on rich people mean that they will end up paying five times more tax than they would have done if we kept the 50p tax rate. I hope that Ken Livingstone will start paying the income tax that he should pay now, instead of doing it only if he becomes Mayor of London.

The Budget is pro-business, as it should be. It introduces the above-the-line R and D tax credit that all the business groups have been calling for, and a reduction in corporation tax this year, heading down to the 22% rate to make the UK an extremely competitive place to do business.

I was particularly pleased to see the pro-gas strategy, which will help us to create cleaner energy in future, which is vital given that we neglected to build the infrastructure that we need in this country.

There are lots of other practical measures in the Budget, including the Government’s wish to introduce duty stamps for alcohol. That is important, because there is a battle with the smugglers and a massive loss of income to the Exchequer, because the tax that should be paid is not paid on a lot of alcohol. It is absolutely correct that the Government are moving to capture that source of income for the Exchequer.

I welcome the extra focus on enterprise zones around the country. It is absolutely right. It simply cannot be acceptable that an area such as the west midlands experienced jobs shrinkage during the boom years.

We quite properly help young people to go to university in this country through the loans system, which we introduced, and is it not incredibly welcome that we will now help young people to set up their own businesses through the enterprise loan scheme introduced in the Budget?

I very much welcome the national loan guarantee scheme. The £20 billion-worth of guarantees that the Government will give to businesses will mean that they can borrow at a lower rate of interest—it will sometimes be 1% lower. That will be rolled out over the next few months and it is extremely welcome for businesses in all constituencies.

The announcements on the single-tier pension are excellent news for pensioners. Moving to a single-tier £140 a week pension is fantastic news for them. We should remember that very many of the poorest pensioners fail to receive the extra income to which they are entitled in pension credit because of the complicated means-testing system introduced by the previous Government. Single-tier is fairer and more just, it will deal with pensioner poverty much more effectively, and it is hugely to be welcomed.

I like the Government’s vision for addressing our infrastructure needs on a massive scale. This Government are committed to building the new roads that this country needs, as I have seen in my constituency, where an innovative public-private partnership deal will get a new bypass built. I waited in vain for the previous Government to build that, but it will be built under this Government. It is not only roads: we have a vision comparable with that of the Victorians for railways, and we are doing something about our water infrastructure and our energy infrastructure, which is incredibly important if we do not want the lights to go out in a few years.

What we are doing to improve the accommodation for our servicemen and women—increasing the families welfare grant and doubling council tax relief—is vital given the considerable burdens that they continue to bear on our behalf.

I am proud to be a member of a governing party that aims to double our exports in the next decade. It is shameful that this country has in the past exported more to Ireland than to Brazil, Russia, India and China combined. At a time when Germany is increasing its exports, we can, must and will—under this Government—do better.

It is right that we will tell taxpayers what their tax is going on. All our constituents will become much more engaged with tax issues when they see how much they are paying in total and where it goes. I welcome that further move for transparency by this Government.

The Chancellor summed up the Budget very well when he concluded his speech and said that we borrowed our way into trouble, and we are going to earn our way out of it.

Energy and Climate Change

Andrew Selous Excerpts

Tuesday 20th December 2011 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Selous (South West Bedfordshire) (Con)]

It is always a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas).

I represent a constituency that has a large number of park homes, which I visit regularly. I am particularly grateful in this regard to a constituent, Mrs Lorraine Bond, who has a Whipsnade park home. She asked me to come to see her a couple of weeks ago, having corresponded with me for quite a while about the exorbitant cost of heating her home using liquid petroleum gas cylinders—this is common for many park home residents. She told me that last winter, when it was cold, she was spending £300 a month on average to keep her park home warm. It is possible to have five extremely cold months in a difficult winter in the United Kingdom, so my constituents are having to spend £1,500 to keep their park homes warm. If we bear in mind the fact that most park home residents are elderly—they tend to be pensioners—and often on low and fixed incomes, the House will realise the significance of that sum. It causes me great concern and that is why I wanted to raise the matter with the Minister today.

The Office of Fair Trading just completed its off-grid energy report in October of this year. It describes the cylinder LPG market as

“a mature and declining market”

of only some 25,000 to 50,000 homes for the 47 kg cylinders of LPG. It points out that bulk LPG is more economical and involves greater ease of delivery and handling, but even bulk LPG is more expensive than other off-grid fuels such as heating oil, about which we hear a lot in this House, solid fuel or electricity. They all, in turn, are much more expensive ways of heating one’s home than a mains gas supply connection, which many rural areas do not have.

The market for liquid petroleum gas—propane and butane in the main—is very limited. There are only three major cylinder suppliers, Calor Gas, Flogas and BP Gas, and the OFT noted that retail arrangements for cylinder LPG

“in effect require dealers to deal exclusively with one supplier.”

It notes, with considerable understatement, that

“these agreements could potentially restrict competition.”

The OFT has said that it

“may return to these issues in the context of the wider cylinder LPG market at a later date”.

It urgently needs to do so, because we are talking about very vulnerable people on low incomes with little choice about the way in which they heat their homes. Our current regulation is purely through the OFT and the Competition Commission, because Ofgem and Consumer Focus do not have a remit for this market.

What can we do? The first thing we need to do is ensure that any future potential park home residents are well aware before they move in of how much it could cost to heat their home. They need to have that knowledge before they take the decision to become a park home resident.

I was encouraged when earlier this year, on 24 March, in column 1084 of Hansard, one of the DECC Ministers said that the green deal and the energy company obligation would apply to park home residents. That is very welcome, but what has happened with the renewable heat premium payment? Some £15 million of Government money, aimed at around 25,000 homes, is due to be spent up to March next year, so have park homes been covered by that payment scheme? If they have not been, can we ensure that they are in the remaining months?

My major question for the Minister concerns whether the renewable heat incentive, which starts in March next year, will apply to park home owners. As I hope I have outlined, they are some of our most vulnerable residents who are in greatest need of the new technology and financial support that the Government are bringing in through that incentive. I understand that at the moment that decision is still, in classic Government language, “subject to policy development”, so I urge my hon. Friend the Member for North Norfolk (Norman Lamb), as the Minister on the Front Bench, to ensure that this group are covered. As I have said, they are the most vulnerable residents and they need this help.

A couple of weeks ago, I visited a major new development in my constituency in Houghton Regis, on Sandringham drive, where every roof—the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas) will be pleased to hear this—had photovoltaic cells on it, leading to water heating. It did not benefit from the renewable heat incentive, but the residents told me that they had very light heating bills last year as a result of that new technology. Above all, park home residents, who are mainly pensioners and mainly on low incomes, should be the ones to benefit from the renewable heat incentive and the technology that is coming in, which could make heating their homes much more affordable.

Fuel Prices

Andrew Selous Excerpts

Tuesday 15th November 2011 Commons Chamber

[Rosie Cooper]

In my constituency, to be forced to look for work within 9 miles is darn near impossible because there is no transport infrastructure.

[Andrew Selous (South West Bedfordshire) (Con)]

I think that the hon. Member for Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland (Tom Blenkinsop) meant to say that it was 90 minutes, rather than 90 miles, which is quite a significant difference.

[Rosie Cooper]

Fine: my answer remains the same.

There are many rural communities in West Lancashire, and in those areas, public transport is almost non-existent. The main services in villages have closed down, so people have to travel to the main towns to shop, to go to the doctors or to go to work. They rely on their car to get about or, in the case of some older people, on the kindness of a friend to give them a lift. Yet again, if people cannot run their car because of costs, that has a negative effect on all aspects of their life. I am concerned about the impact on both the young and older people in rural communities, as they may become ever more isolated, making them more vulnerable. How do pensioners on a fixed income that has been stretched to the limit find the extra money to cope with further fuel increases?

Some people argue that a reduction in fuel duty and thus fuel prices would mean an increase in the number of journeys and carbon emissions. I absolutely understand that argument, which reflects the fact that there is a difficult balance between our desire to tackle climate change and enabling people to go about their daily business, go to work, support their family, and run their company. Simply pricing people out of their car is not a real solution, especially in areas such as West Lancashire, where there is no real alternative in place.

It strikes me that with a flatlining economy, rising unemployment and businesses unwilling to invest because of the current uncertainty, now is exactly the time for flexibility and common sense. People like those living in West Lancashire—hard-working families and local businesses employing people—are looking to the Government to help them out just a little. They want help to ease that burden, and it is probably the least they are owed, after broken promises to introduce a fuel duty stabiliser, a failure to scrap the planned fuel duty increase and a decision to increase VAT. It is time for social justice and fairness. It is time for the Government to listen and to act. People want them to do it, and to do it now.

--- Later in debate ---

[Andrew Selous (South West Bedfordshire) (Con)]

I, like others, warmly congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Harlow (Robert Halfon) on bringing this important debate to the House today.

In my constituency the car is essential really to all my constituents. We have three market towns and 14 villages, and although the bus companies do valiantly they cannot serve all my constituents, many of whom have to commute a long way—for 90 minutes or even longer—out of my constituency to find regular work. When there were difficulties with the buses in villages such as Hockliffe and Eggington there was enormous upset, because many people in those areas find motoring so expensive.

In rural areas, on average only 10% of people do not have a car, because they are so necessary, and more than half of households need two cars to get their families around.

[Anne Marie Morris (Newton Abbot) (Con)]

Is my hon. Friend aware that in rural constituencies such as ours the cost of filling up at the petrol pump comes to 10% of the wages of an individual on the lowest income? That is an enormous amount, and does he agree that it puts a particular burden on those living in rural communities?

[Andrew Selous]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right: that adds insult to injury.

The huge disparity in petrol prices experienced by so many of our constituents is extremely difficult. In addition, the disparity between the price of diesel and unleaded petrol concerns me greatly. Diesel used to be more expensive. We then had parity, and now diesel has shot up again. It is apparent that we have an inadequate supply of UK refining capacity for diesel in this country. We have to import much of our diesel from Russia, which causes particular problems given that around half of all car sales are of diesel vehicles.

[Tessa Munt]

There is also the increase in prices for liquefied petroleum gas, which has gone up astronomically in the past few years.

[Andrew Selous]

My hon. Friend makes a good point, and I am glad that she has been able to get it on the record.

Of course, the Government are in a very difficult fiscal position because of the economic mismanagement we inherited. Every day we are still spending around £330 million more than our income, and these things are not easy for Treasury Ministers. In spite of that we have managed to reduce the cost of fuel by around 6p per gallon, which my hon. Friend the Member for Harlow said would equate to around £274 less spent on fuel per motorist in this Parliament. That is very welcome. Government Members are instinctive tax cutters, which is why we have set out plans to reduce corporation tax to the lowest rate in the G7 by the end of this Parliament. That is where our instincts lie, and my hon. Friend the Minister knows that.

In contrast to some of the other speakers today, I want to consider the future in relation to fuel prices and talk about how some of the new technologies will be able to help save our constituents money. On 10 May I held a debate in Westminster Hall, in response to which the Under-Secretary of State for Transport, the hon. Member for Lewes (Norman Baker), told hon. Members that people who buy a Nissan Leaf would have an average reduction in their motoring costs of around £1,000 per year, and that there would be a payback on the total costs within seven years. He also sent me further information to show that the seven-year fuel costs of a Ford Focus are £6,827. For a Toyota Prius that figure is £4,034, and for a Nissan Leaf coming on sale next year, it is just £517. Some 48 other makes of electric vehicle will be available soon—for example, the Vauxhall Ampera and others. I am delighted that in my constituency, charging points for electric cars will be installed at Ashton square by the Grove theatre car park in Dunstable, and at the West street and Hockliffe street car parks in Leighton Buzzard.

We have rightly heard much about the problems faced by small businesses. We need to consider the use of biomethane for trucks and hydrogen fuel cell technology for buses and heavy vehicles. At Nagoya airport in Japan all the buses are powered by hydrogen fuel cells. We need to ensure that we develop a hydrogen refuelling network, as we are doing for electric vehicles. Our constituents will then be able to enjoy cheaper fuel.

We also need to look at what is happening internationally. In Israel and Denmark the Better Place company is engaged across the whole economy. On 1 November Mr van Erck of that company told a meeting of the Westminster Energy, Environment and Transport Forum, at which some hon. Members were also present, that within three years the best-selling vehicle would be electric. Not only can we have cheaper motoring for our constituents, but the UK is also on track for a sizeable share of what HSBC estimates to be a $677 billion market by 2020. That was mentioned by Michael Hurwitz, a director of the Government’s Office for Low Emission Vehicles on 1 November. Such a plan would stimulate the economy and create British jobs for British workers, as well as lower prices for our constituents.

The UK is in a race to design, manufacture and power cheaper low-carbon vehicles. We have a once in a lifetime opportunity to lead in this industry as we lead in Formula 1, with eight of the Formula 1 teams based in “motorsport valley" in the United Kingdom. Such a challenge will be good for our constituents’ pockets and good for the economy. I recommend to the Government that we power forward in this area, for the whole of the United Kingdom.

Eurozone Crisis

Andrew Selous Excerpts

Thursday 27th October 2011 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Selous (South West Bedfordshire) (Con)]

Can the Chancellor tell us how on earth it can be the case that, although it has a larger deficit than Greece, the United Kingdom enjoys German levels of interest rates?

[Mr Osborne]

That is because this Government, in the teeth of opposition from the Labour party—which created this mess—have established fiscal credibility, brought our interest rates down, and ensured that while we may talk about the bail-out of some European countries, we are not talking about the bail-out of Britain.