Baroness Primarolo
Main Page: Baroness Primarolo (Labour - Life peer)Department Debates - View all Baroness Primarolo's debates with the HM Treasury
(13 years, 5 months ago)
Commons ChamberDoes the hon. Lady agree that the Minister will be very generous in seeing representatives of the FairFuelUK campaign, who have 140,000 signatures on their petition as of today? That is organised by Peter Carroll. The chief executives of the Road Haulage Association and the Freight Transport Association and the operations director of the RAC, together with Quentin Willson, the motor journalist, and I, coming from a hard-hit rural constituency, will discuss this tomorrow. We are suffering the double whammy of domestic oil and fuel oil—
Order. This is supposed to be an intervention, not an opportunity to make another speech or to put out an advert.
I would not expect any less of the Minister, as she certainly should be meeting the organisations. It is a shame that the Chancellor and the Chief Secretary to the Treasury were not also here today to listen to people.
The hon. Member for Brigg and Goole (Andrew Percy) talked about his election leaflets hounding his constituents about the fuel duty stabiliser. He referred to the work that Conservative central office had put into the policy, which he described as a well-thought-out policy from before the election that will be implemented shortly. I may disabuse him of that delusion a bit later in my speech.
The hon. Member for Amber Valley (Nigel Mills) talked about the impact in rural areas and the fact that people could not afford to go to work, and he urged the Chancellor not to go ahead with the fuel duty escalator. My hon. Friend the Member for Stockton North (Alex Cunningham) ventured further afield and discussed the impact of fuel poverty on people who were having to spend more than 10% of their income on heating their homes, saying that what the Government are doing across the board is likely to push more people into fuel poverty. It was a very thoughtful speech.
The hon. Member for Bristol West (Stephen Williams) talked about petrol prices in Bristol. I am sure that one of the few things on which we can agree is that Bristol desperately needs to sort out its transport issues and develop a better public transport system. It has the worst congestion of any city in the country, and we need to address that. The hon. Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar (Mr MacNeil)—did I pronounce that correctly?
I now have to announce the result of a Division deferred from a previous day. On the question relating to environmental protection, the Ayes were 282 and the Noes were 20, so the Ayes have it.
[The Division list is published at the end of today’s debates.]