Oral Answers to Questions

Ed Davey Excerpts

Wednesday 15th June 2022 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I thank my hon. Friend, and I want to extend my thanks also to Beverley and everybody in Cohort 4 for what they are doing. The extra support that we are giving includes £140 million of funding for victims’ services and £47 million ring-fenced particularly for organisations such as Cohort 4. I say thank you to Cohort 4 and similar organisations for everything they do.

[Ed Davey (Kingston and Surbiton) (LD)]

May I join the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition in paying tribute to our armed forces, and in sending our thanks and gratitude to the veterans of the Falklands war and their families?

Millions of families across our country are suffering because of the cost of living emergency. People in rural areas are especially hurting, bearing the brunt of record fuel price rises. The rural fuel duty relief scheme is supposed to help by taking money off the price of petrol, but some rural counties are not eligible, such as Cumbria, Shropshire and Devon—[Interruption.] The Conservative party does not want to hear ideas to help those people, and I think the people of Devon will take note because there are families and pensioners across rural counties who are missing out on this support. As petrol prices soar, will the Prime Minister accept our idea to help people in rural counties and expand rural fuel duty relief?

[The Prime Minister]

We cut fuel duty for everybody across the country by record sums. The right hon. Gentleman talks about pensioners; we are giving £850 more to every pensioner across the country. He talks about the cost of energy; everybody is going to get another £400 to help them with the costs of energy.

The blissful fact about the Liberal Democrats is that people do not actually know what their policies are. They are able to go around the country bamboozling the rural communities—not revealing that they are, in fact, in favour of massive new green taxes, which is what they want, and not revealing that they would like to go back, straightaway, into the common agricultural policy, with all the bureaucracy and all the costs that that entails. They do not say that on the doorstep.

--- Later in debate ---

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

I thank the hon. Lady for her point of order. The Chair is not responsible for points made by right hon. and hon. Members, but she has put her concerns on the record, so I suggest we leave it at that.

[Ed Davey]

Further to that point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I thank the hon. Member for North Devon (Selaine Saxby) for raising that point and—not directly, I think—pointing out that vast parts of Devon do not have rural fuel duty relief.

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

I think this is becoming a continuation of Prime Minister’s questions, so we will leave it at that.