Fuel Prices

Debate between Naomi Long and William Cash

Thursday 13th September 2012 Commons Chamber

[Naomi Long]

Courage is always commendable, wherever it is found, and I hope that the OFT is not only courageous but successful in its investigations.

In the limited time available to me today I do not wish to reiterate points that have already been made. I concur with most of what I have heard today, not least what has been said about the immediate response at the pumps when oil prices rise but the tardy response when they fall. That is a matter that frustrates. However, I wish to focus my attention on particular aspects of the market: supermarket pricing policy and its impact on consumers. I wish to state at the outset that my focus on this issue is not to suggest that supermarkets are responsible for all the ills of the market. They are not the worst retailers in all cases; many offer lower prices to consumers than other petrol and diesel retailers. However, the variation in supermarket pricing strategy and the prices on the forecourts are further examples of the lack of transparency in pricing more generally.

[Mr William Cash (Stone) (Con)]

Does the hon. Lady also agree with FairFuelUK’s central campaign that the 3p fuel duty rise, which was deferred from August, should not come into effect on 1 January 2013 as planned? Some of us voted recently for such an approach during consideration of the Finance Bill.

[Naomi Long]

I do agree with that. I also wish to point out that the price variation between petrol stations in a single constituency can sometimes completely outstrip the fuel duty, yet it often gets less attention. I wish to focus on that in my next remarks.

Over the past year, I have been monitoring the price of fuel in my constituency and in the adjoining constituencies of Strangford and North Down. I have become increasingly concerned that people in my constituency get a poor deal on petrol prices compared with those in surrounding towns such as Newtownards and Bangor, where the price of petrol and diesel can be 6p a litre cheaper. One of the reasons for that differential is the impact of supermarkets on local pricing. Although they account for only 4% of Northern Ireland forecourts, their market share is about 25%. Supermarkets such as Asda operate a quasi-national pricing policy, but others do not and that can lead to significant anomalies in the pricing between stores in the same chain, and also in the prices offered at other local retailers as a consequence.

Water and Sanitation

Debate between Naomi Long and William Cash

Wednesday 21st March 2012 Westminster Hall

[Naomi Long]

I have congratulated the Government on that on numerous occasions, and I will congratulate them on other matters, but I will also press them on areas where further progress could be made.

This subject is important to my constituents, many of whom signed up to the recent Tearfund postcard campaign calling for more action on water and sanitation. Last October, the hon. Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce) and I joined Tearfund to present more than 10,000 postcards to the Under-Secretary of State for International Development, to highlight the importance of action.

I recognise that in the UK, the biggest step change in public health and mortality rates resulted not from medical advances, but from widened access to clean drinking water and adequate sanitation. During the late 19th century, as both water and sewerage infrastructure expanded dramatically, the life expectancy of an average member of the population in this country rose by 15 years—a remarkable increase, delivered over a short period.

[Mr William Cash (Stone) (Con)]

I am chairman of the all-party group on water and sanitation in the third world. Does the hon. Lady agree that whatever progress has been made on access to drinking water, which we acknowledge is improving, only 63% of the world population have access to sanitation, which is well below the 75% target, and that if we do not get sanitation right, water will not be right either?

[Naomi Long]

I agree entirely with the hon. Gentleman, and I hope to come to that point.

The British Medical Association has recognised that commissioning of the sewerage system in London was the most important breakthrough in public health—more significant than the discovery of penicillin or development of vaccine programmes. If developing nations are to experience a similar step change in their outcomes, there can be no more effective place to start than investment in water, sanitation and hygiene.

There has been progress, particularly on access to clean water, and this month brought the welcome news that the UN millennium development goal on water has been met five years early. However, it is clear that approximately 10% of the world population still have no access to clean water and there is still much work to be done. Also, the global figure disguises the disparities in progress between, and even within, different countries. That needs to be considered carefully when planning future programmes. For example, almost half the progress towards the millennium development goal can be accounted for by progress in India and China alone, whereas progress in sub-Saharan Africa has generally been much slower; and although Sierra Leone, for example, has made significant improvements in access to water, with a national average of 55%, that masks a significant disparity between rural access, at 35%, and urban access, at 87%.

Even allowing for the complexities of the picture, significant progress has been made on access to clean water. However, my understanding is that, by contrast, the millennium development goal on access to sanitation is not on track for delivery. Indeed, it has been identified as one of the most off-track millennium development goals. I would welcome the Minister’s views on what action the UK Government could take to try to ensure that focus is maintained on taking forward work on that specific problem.

At the current rate of progress, it has been estimated that it could take 350 years to ensure that everyone in Africa alone has access to adequate sanitation. That differential delivery between water and sanitation may be due in part to the stigma that surrounds discussion of sanitation in many cultures, including our own. That needs to be tackled in the developing world because education on hygiene is critical to improving public health. In India, for example, it is estimated that almost 51% of the population still defecate in the open, and that poor sanitation costs India around 6% of its GDP.