Autumn Statement

Anne Marie Morris Excerpts

Wednesday 5th December 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Osborne]

Of course our ambition is for employment to increase. That is why we have made further changes to make our businesses more competitive, to help working people and to create a welfare system that encourages those who are in work. I hope she will support that.

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

I congratulate the Chancellor on the good news in his statement for micro-businesses and particularly on what he has done with fuel duty and extending the small business rate tax relief. That is wonderful, but I have a particular concern about rural communities. In the detail, has he considered any further rural rebate for fuel duty in addition to the freeze he has already introduced?

[Mr Osborne]

I am not sure that this is necessarily the answer my hon. Friend wants, but unfortunately the European Union constrains the rural fuel rebates we can give to very remote island areas. That is why we have been able to introduce rebates in some of the Scottish islands and in the Isles of Scilly, but not in more remote parts of rural England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. We are pressing the Commission to see whether we can extend the definition of remote rural areas so that remote parts of the south-west, for example, can benefit.