Fuel Prices and the Cost of Living

Fiona O'Donnell Excerpts

Wednesday 16th March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Fiona O’Donnell (East Lothian) (Lab)]

I am genuinely grateful for the opportunity to speak in this debate. The increase in VAT has been a matter of great concern to my constituents and I am unashamedly going to concentrate on how it is affecting them.

[Barbara Keeley (Worsley and Eccles South) (Lab)]

I thank my hon. Friend for giving way, as the Minister did not. The Minister talked about living in the real world, but I am sure that we on the Opposition Benches know more about that than she does. I am sure that my hon. Friend’s constituents will be struggling with the £450 a year increase—

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

That is a point for the debate, not a point for the Chair.

[Fiona O’Donnell]

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. I am obviously going to have to treat the Minister with kid gloves as she is so sensitive.

East Lothian is a largely rural constituency made up of small gatherings of communities that rely heavily on the use of their cars. I suspect that the hundreds of e-mails that I have received over the past few weeks will now be followed by hundreds more, as my constituents will be bitterly disappointed by the Minister’s utterly sterile contribution to the debate.

[Charlie Elphicke]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Fiona O’Donnell]

Not at this stage.

The e-mails that I have received have not been the standard campaign e-mails that many of us find in our inboxes every day. I have been genuinely moved and angered by the stories that they have told. They have been from motorists, some of them older people living on pensions, people surviving on disability living allowance—Lord knows, they have enough to worry about under this Government—or people stuck on fixed incomes. This rise in the cost of fuel is hitting them hard.

I have also had e-mails from employers in my constituency. East Lothian relies heavily on small employers, but they are struggling. Two have already told me that their businesses will close this month, and that is bad news for East Lothian and for my constituents. We are promised that we will have a Budget for growth next week, but in East Lothian, the Government’s policy is not working; it is going in the opposite direction.

[Mr Reid]

Like the hon. Lady, I represent a rural constituency and, like her, I agree that we need action on fuel prices now. However, we need action in the Budget next week, not in the six years it would take for this Labour motion to be implemented.

[Fiona O’Donnell]

I am sure that all my constituents will feel so much better after hearing that intervention. They do not want to hear the hon. Gentleman’s political point scoring and opportunism; they want to hear what the Government are going to do for hard-working families, for pensioners and for those with disabilities in my constituency.

I have had e-mails from people who have lost their jobs. People living in East Lothian need to be able to keep their cars on the road in order to access the services that will help them get back into work, to turn up for job interviews and to get out there to find and keep a job. I have also had e-mails from people who have been struggling throughout the past few years. I am going to admit that, for those on fixed incomes, times have been difficult, but the message is now clear that, under this Government, they are getting tougher.

I am also going to be unusually generous and congratulate the Tory party on a splendid result in the general election in East Lothian, where it moved up to second place. The Scottish National party—I see that its Members have now deserted us—moved down to fourth. Before the Tories get too excited, however, I should point out that that result involved a 0% swing from Labour. Many of the people who have contacted me voted for the Tories at the election, and I am representing them today without fear or favour. They want to know when the Government are going to deliver for them. If the Government will not listen to me or to those on our Front Bench, I urge them to listen to my constituents.

I know that the first questions that my constituents would want me to ask today are, “Where is the Chief Secretary to the Treasury?” and “Where is the Chancellor of the Exchequer?” They will be insulted that the Chancellor and the Chief Secretary have not had the guts to turn up and take part in this debate and to answer my constituents’ questions. I have something of interest to tell the House. I went to the same school as the Chief Secretary to the Treasury. The right hon. Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber (Mr Kennedy) also went to that school, and he has remarked to me, “That’s now one of us from each of the political parties.” I am particularly disappointed that the Chief Secretary to the Treasury, who represents a rural constituency, does not see the impact that the increase in fuel prices is having.

I try hard not to be judgmental about the Conservatives, and I try hard not to make the kind of comments that the Minister finds so harsh. But when they talk about the tough choices that they face in government, I have no sympathy for them. I am sick and tired of hearing them talk about that. Being in government and having a chance to reach out to families in East Lothian is not what is tough in life; what is tough for people is working out how they are going to fill up their car at the Co-op in Tranent next weekend in order to keep their family on the road. That is what is tough.

Mr Speaker rightly criticised the hon. Member for Burnley (Gordon Birtwistle) for bringing an electronic device into the Chamber. I presume that the hon. Gentleman has been running around for the past half hour trying to find a printer somewhere on the estate. I have gone to the trouble of printing off a couple of the representations that I have received from my constituents, and I should like to read them out to the House. One comes from Alec Flynn in Tranent, who says of the fuel price rise:

“We are a small family road haulage business…and we would like your support to fight the price the government plan to put on in the budget”.

I want the Minister to address Alec Flynn’s concerns, and to stop moaning about tough choices.

[Justine Greening]

Many hauliers can recover VAT, and I do not think that the Opposition’s proposal on VAT would provide the help that she is seeking to provide for them.

[Fiona O'Donnell]

Perhaps I have some responsibility here. I have not formally congratulated the Government on winning the general election, so perhaps it is my fault that they have not grasped the fact that they are now in government. They are in a position to change their minds, to lower the VAT rate on fuel and to make a difference to Mr Flynn and to ensure that the people he employs continue to have jobs. I suspect that Mr Flynn will remain disappointed, however. We were certainly not planning to increase VAT or to make life even more difficult for people.

[Charlie Elphicke]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Fiona O'Donnell]

No thank you.

Then there is the case of Mary Johnston from Haddington, who said:

“My husband and I are senior citizens. We live in a farm cottage 2.5 miles outside Haddington”.

Let me summarise by saying that the rising costs of motoring are making it virtually impossible for them to leave their house. I hope that at some point during this debate we will hear some words of comfort from a Government who have let down my constituency.

--- Later in debate ---

[Nigel Mills]

I am grateful for that intervention from a fellow Derbyshire Member, and I entirely agree with him.

The hon. Member for Bassetlaw (John Mann), who is no longer in the Chamber, said that all Governments had chosen to increase fuel duty over the years. We must accept that it was our Government who, nearly 20 years ago, introduced the fuel duty escalator, but the aim then was to encourage people to improve their behaviour by driving smaller and more fuel-efficient cars and considering alternative means of transport. I think we can tell the Government that we have all got that message. Many of us have started using diesel and have bought cars with smaller engines in an attempt to cut our spending on fuel. I know that many of my constituents have done that. However, the scope for such measures is limited, as many people still cannot afford to drive a car. If the nudge is the order of the day, I think that we have got the message and do not need any more nudging.

[Fiona O'Donnell]

I can tell the hon. Gentleman that we too have got the message from the Government, who claim that they want to make work pay. Does the hon. Gentleman accept that for many working people, fuel price increases mean that work is not paying?

[Nigel Mills]

I am grateful for that intervention—I think. The cost incurred in driving to and from work is clearly a factor when people are deciding whether work pays, which is why the increase planned for 1 April really should not go ahead.

Let me return to the topic of nudging. I think we all accept that tax can influence behaviour, and that if we further increase the tax on driving we will see the changes in behaviour that we would expect. People will drive to work less, and businesses will not be able to survive, prosper and grow because they will not be able to cope with the increased cost base. We can all cite small haulage businesses in our constituencies that are struggling to deal with the duty rise. As has been pointed out, reversing the VAT rise will not help those businesses at all; it is the level of duty that we need to consider. If the Government want to find another way of raising some revenue from the haulage industry to help compensate for the loss of fuel duty, I urge them to accelerate their plan to charge foreign road hauliers for using our roads.