Road Fuel Duties
Debate between Justine Greening and Jim Dobbin(13 years, 3 months ago)
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Justine Greening
You always know that you are making progress in an argument, Mr Dobbin, when people have to turn back to things that happened decades—[Interruption.] Opposition Members can make this into a political issue. I would like to make it into an issue that involves people outside this place. Frankly, if those in the Labour party had spent less time arguing among themselves, as we now know they were doing, and a little more time moving away from political stunts to manage the economy responsibly, perhaps the public finances in this country would not have been in the mess that they were in when they were handed over to us at the last election. [Interruption.] An Opposition Member says, “You are in government.” Yes, there’s a good reason for that—because the British people had just about had enough of the Labour party being in control of the purse strings. I think we all hope that it will be an awfully long time before it is given control of the purse strings again. [Interruption.] I now want to make some progress on fuel duty and I particularly want to —[Interruption.]
Jim Dobbin (in the Chair)
Order. Could I ask hon. Members to behave themselves?
Justine Greening
Thank you, Mr Dobbin. I want to make some progress on fuel duty, because that is the key concern in our minds today. The issue of hauliers was raised. The package that we introduced has meant that hauliers have been able to benefit on average by about £1,700 a year.