Motorhomes and Vehicle Excise Duty
Debate between David Amess and Simon Clarke(4 years, 11 months ago)
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The Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury (Mr Simon Clarke)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir David. I am grateful to the hon. Member for Newport West (Ruth Jones) for bringing this topic to the House today. I am grateful to all Members who have taken the time to attend and intervene and who have taken the chance to stand up for their constituents. This debate makes it clear that while motorhomes may make up only a small proportion of the vehicle fleet on our roads, they play an important role.
Sir David Amess (in the Chair)
Order. I sense that there is some confusion about this debate. It is a half-hour debate. The sponsor of the motion speaks and then the Minister replies. It is for other Members to intervene. Unless permission is obtained, the debate is not for other Members to make separate speeches. There are still many Members here who have attended because they are interested in the matter, but it is simply that they can make interventions.
Mr Clarke
I will of course be happy to take such interventions if colleagues wish to make them. I may regret saying that in a moment, but I will take the chance for now.
As I was saying a moment ago, we recognise the importance of this sector for our tourism economy and that it supports thousands of skilled jobs right across the United Kingdom and, indeed, in certain clusters. Yorkshire is obviously one of those.
To recap the situation, the Government use the vehicle excise duty system to encourage the take-up of vehicles with low CO2 emissions to help meet our legally binding climate change targets. The new VED regulations were introduced in September to aid that, as motorhomes with higher emissions are liable to higher rates of VED than those with lower emissions. After all, transport is the largest sector for UK greenhouse gas emissions, accounting for some 27% of the total. Road transport makes up more than 90% of that.