Fuel Costs

Heather Wheeler Excerpts

Monday 7th February 2011 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Phillips]

I have not seen the comments made by the right hon. Member for Doncaster North (Edward Miliband). However, he was at the heart of the previous Administration, with all that that meant for the legacy inherited by this Government. Whatever opportunism Labour Members pursued—we saw it last week during the forestry debate from a party that sold off 25,000 acres of forest without any guarantees of rights of public access—we understand that it is the duty of the Opposition to oppose. However, I do not understand many of his policies, and I do not expect that I understand this one any better than any of the others.

We have heard about two mechanisms that might serve to address some of the difficulties associated with current high fuel prices. The first is the derogation. The Government have done more to take that forward during the few short months they have been in office than the previous Government did during the entire time they were in office. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (John Thurso) and his predecessor who have done so much work on this matter. It is gratifying that we at last have a Government who are beginning to take this issue seriously and to negotiate on it in Europe. I hope that in due course we will see this derogation.

On behalf of my constituents, I would like to hear from the Exchequer Secretary that the pilot, whatever that might be, is rolled out not just in the remote rural areas referred to in the amendment—the Inner and Outer Hebrides, the Northern Isles and the Isles of Scilly—but in areas of England affected by high fuel prices.

[Heather Wheeler (South Derbyshire) (Con)]

Could my hon. and learned Friend expand on the rural areas in England suffering with high fuel prices? It would be helpful for the Exchequer Secretary. Certainly in South Derbyshire we are seeing prices as high as £1.36 a litre. We are suffering too, and if that could be borne in mind when he sums up, it would be superb.

[Stephen Phillips]

I am sure that my hon. Friend the Minister will take into account the views from Derbyshire. I do not want to take up too much time dealing with that, however, because there are a number of other people who want to contribute to the debate.

What I want to hear from the Government Front Bench is that the pilot will be rolled out not just in island communities in Scotland or elsewhere, but in England. There are areas, such as the constituency that I represent, where it costs people an enormous amount just to live their ordinary lives, which is effectively a piece of discrimination via the tax system. We deserve the piloting of such a break, in just the same way as those areas of the United Kingdom where the pilot will take place deserve it.

This is not the subject of today’s debate, but a lot of my postbag is taken up with correspondence from constituents expressing concern about the Barnett formula and the way it effectively sends a subsidy—they would say at their expense—to Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. That is one of the issues that this Government will have to grapple with, at the same time as explaining to my constituents why the derogation will mean that there may be lower prices in other parts of the United Kingdom.

I have not yet dealt with the other limb to what is proposed—it is something that I understand the Government are looking at, and they must consider it carefully—namely, the fuel duty stabiliser. The fuel duty stabiliser, which we talked about in the election, is designed to smooth out, as the hon. Member for Banff and Buchan (Dr Whiteford) said, the spikes in prices that harm our constituents so much. To those who have read it, it is clear that the Office for Budget Responsibility report indicated that, although difficult, introducing the fuel duty stabiliser would not make that much difference to the revenue going to the Exchequer.

I did not understand the position of the hon. Member for Bristol East on that issue, as on so many other things. I am sure that in due course there will be some intolerant tweets about what I am saying about her across the Chamber, as that is her general way of dealing with me. I did not understand her or her party’s position on the fuel duty stabiliser, because she was unable properly to tell the House what it was, and I certainly did not understand her party’s position on the derogation from Europe. If the Opposition are to oppose in a responsible way, as the Leader of the Opposition has said, it would help if the Government and Members in all parts of the House knew what the Opposition’s position was, because at the moment, on this issue as on so many others, we do not.

Let me say a word about the question before the House. The difficulty with the motion, as the Government’s proposed amendment recognises, is that it does not take into account the concerns of constituencies other than those in the devolved Administrations. The motion is focused, no doubt for perfectly good political and tactical reasons, on those constituencies, not ours. It is for that reason, among many others, that I will not be supporting it, although I will of course support the amendment that my hon. Friend the Economic Secretary moved.