Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Peter Aldous and John Bercow

Monday 28th October 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

What an extraordinarily helpful nugget of information the Minister has vouchsafed to me and other Members of the House; he really is an encyclopedia of arguably useful information.

[Peter Aldous (Waveney) (Con)]

T8. Can the Minister confirm that she is working closely with the Lord Chancellor to ensure that the Domestic Abuse Bill goes hand in hand with root-and-branch reform of family courts to make them more accessible and less intimidating places?

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Peter Aldous and John Bercow

Thursday 18th July 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

The hon. Gentleman was ahead of himself, not for the first time and probably not for the last.

[Peter Aldous (Waveney) (Con)]

2. What steps he is taking to improve charging infrastructure for electric vehicles.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Peter Aldous and John Bercow

Tuesday 11th June 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call Andrea Jenkyns. Oh dear; she has beetled out of the Chamber. I therefore call Peter Aldous.

[Peter Aldous (Waveney) (Con)]

T5. With town centres such as that of Lowestoft facing serious challenges, will the Minister confirm that she is working with the Treasury and the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government to put in place a fairer system of business taxation?

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Peter Aldous and John Bercow

Thursday 9th May 2019 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Dr Thérèse Coffey)]

Our focus is on ensuring that effective monitoring and protection are in place. Since 2017, we have increased the protection of seabirds by creating five new marine special protection areas and extending a further nine sites. I draw your attention in particular, Mr Speaker, to the SPA at Flamborough Head, which has been extended to protect nesting and foraging areas for a range of seabirds, including kittiwakes and puffins.

[Mr Speaker]

I am greatly enlightened and deeply obliged to the Minister.

[Peter Aldous]

I am grateful to the Minister for that reply. The UK’s seabird population is in serious decline. Will the Minister use the forthcoming review of the UK marine strategy to set out a recovery plan that includes both targets and a timeline?

State Pension Age

Debate between Peter Aldous and John Bercow

Thursday 8th February 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I remind the House of the substantial business to follow, which is heavily subscribed. There is therefore a premium upon brevity, from Back and Front Benches alike—minimum preliminary comments; simply a focus on the question to the Minister.

[Peter Aldous (Waveney) (Con)]

I shall cut to the chase, Mr Speaker. What impact assessments have the Government carried out to assess the impact of their proposals on women born in the 1950s?

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Peter Aldous and John Bercow

Monday 29th January 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

The hon. Lady is thinking of a matter of great importance, but its relationship to the question under consideration is not clear. We are grateful to her, and she may be able to unburden herself further at a later stage if she is lucky.

[Peter Aldous (Waveney) (Con)]

4. What steps his Department is taking to improve the quality of further education provision.

Vehicle Fuel (Publication of Tax Information)

Debate between Peter Aldous and John Bercow

1st reading: House of Commons
Wednesday 1st February 2017 Commons Chamber

[Peter Aldous (Waveney) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That leave be given to bring in a bill to require the inclusion on vehicle fuel receipts of the amounts of each tax paid; to require all retail fuel pumps to display the amounts of taxes paid when dispensing fuel; and for connected purposes.

This Bill calls for all taxes to be clearly shown on fuel receipts. Its principle is very simple: taxes should be clear to the people who pay them. At the moment, they are not. The Bill provides motorists with far better clarity on what they are paying—a simple breakdown of fuel duty, VAT and VAT on duty. There is no reason why these measures should be unnecessarily burdensome or expensive to businesses.

I understand that the Treasury is advising motorists who contact it in support of the Bill that it would be impractical to introduce it. My response would be that VAT—one of the taxes in question—is already shown on receipts, and that all that is required for fuel duty also to be shown is a simple arithmetic calculation multiplying the number of litres by the duty per litre. The software cost is minimal. With prices at the pumps rising to their highest for over two years and total taxation of fuel bills hovering between 65% and 70%, it is important that Government are open and transparent. Surely it is right that the nation’s 37 million drivers should see the magnitude of the tax they pay every time they fill up their tanks.

The Government must be commended for freezing fuel duty since 2011. However, the UK remains one of the costliest nations in which to fill up with diesel and petrol. This is solely due to the high tax component in pump pricing. The amount of tax remains a huge issue for drivers. This is a tax on a resource that over 70% of people have no choice but to buy to go about their everyday lives. Total fuel duty revenue is approximately £27 billion per annum, with an additional 20% VAT on the duty itself bringing in an extra £5.24 billion. Once drivers find out about VAT on fuel duty—a tax on a tax—it really rankles and perplexes them.

The Bill aims to give motorists what my right hon. Friend the Member for Ipswich (Ben Gummer) has secured for taxpayers in general as a result of his Statements of Taxation Bill, which he presented on 25 January 2012 and which was subsequently included in the 2012 Budget and introduced in 2014. As a result of his initiative, taxpayers now see how their money is spent, broken down area by area of Government spending.

Council tax payers have the same right. The bills that they will receive this spring itemise what each authority will receive and invariably this bill comes with a letter from council leaders explaining what they will be doing with our money. It is only right that hard-pressed motorists are put on the same level playing field, rather than being continually exploited as a cash cow.

The initiative of my right hon. Friend the Member for Ipswich was an important step along the road to full tax transparency. It is now important to complete this journey, so that motorists are able to hold Government to account. It must always be remembered that it is their money, not the state’s.

I commend my right hon. Friend the Member for Harlow (Robert Halfon), who presented a very similar Bill to this on 16 October 2012. He has been a real champion of motorists and it is important that we build on the great work he did in helping to secure successive freezes of fuel duty.

It is also appropriate to pay tribute to the tremendous campaigning work of FairFuelUK, and its founders Quentin Willson and Howard Cox, for standing up for the motorist at every turn in the road. I am grateful for the support that I have been provided by the all-party group on fair fuel for motorists and hauliers chaired by my hon. Friend the Member for Dover (Charlie Elphicke). It is appropriate to highlight the pump watch app that FairFuelUK is launching, which shows how much UK drivers would pay for the same number of litres that they have just bought if they had bought them in 23 other countries. I am afraid that the UK does not occupy a good position in this league table.

I will set out four reasons why I believe there is a compelling case for introducing this Bill. First, there is the need for transparency—to be open, up front and honest with motorists, who as taxpayers have been taken for granted for too long. The magnitude of the tax paid every time drivers fill up at the pumps has been hidden from them for decades. UK drivers continue to pay the highest fuel duty in the world for diesel and the fifth highest for petrol. There is a need for transparency, so that the country’s 37 million drivers can see how much they contribute to public services and our economy.

The traditional VAT-only fuel receipts that are given to us at petrol stations, which we invariably file in the glove compartment, must end now and be replaced by open and complete tax information. Every time a driver fills up their vehicle, they will be able to see where their hard-earned cash is going in the Treasury, and in what form—VAT, fuel duty and VAT on duty. When prices at the pumps fell to around £1 per litre in 2016, the tax that the Government took from drivers reached 75%. What other huge tax contribution is kept hidden from those who pay it? I believe that there is an obligation on the Government to be open with UK drivers regarding the taxes they pay. If drivers feel that they are being taken for granted, we are driving down a very dangerous road. There is a need to be completely up front and to show motorists what they are paying.

It is also important to highlight the regressive nature of fuel duty. In particular, it hits hard-working families and those who are just about managing—the JAMs whose challenges have been highlighted recently. We know that 90% of all journeys are by road, and 70% of drivers have no choice but to use their vehicles to get to work, to drive their children to school, to take their elderly parents to hospital or to go out for the day with their families. I see the problem for myself in my Waveney constituency, where wages are below the national average and many people have no choice but to use their cars to get to work, often travelling long distances to places such as Norwich, Ipswich and Felixstowe. There is also a limited number of petrol stations from which to buy fuel. Waveney motorists, like so many in similar areas around the country, are hit hard by this triple whammy.

It is important to highlight the impact that fuel duty has on the economy. Since 2011, the Treasury has listened to the carefully researched and evidence-based FairFuelUK campaign to freeze fuel duty, which has objectively proved that the level of fuel duty directly impacts on the success of the economy, the creation of new jobs, the level of inflation, investment by small and medium-sized businesses and consumer spending.

Mr Deputy Speaker, it is important to highlight the enormous groundswell of support for the measures in the Bill across the country and around the Chamber. The Bill is targeted at the nation’s 37 million drivers and at all our constituents, so that they can see how much they are contributing to the public purse, to our public services and to promoting economic growth. The clandestine fuel tax receipt must end, and it must be replaced by straightforward and complete tax information for all drivers to see every time they fill up their vehicles.

This is a straightforward Bill that will provide straightforward transparency on fuel duty, on what people pay and on where their money goes. It will make the taxation system more honest. It will spark a debate on whether the motorist should continue to be used as the nation’s tax cow and on how their money is spent. Mr Speaker, I have strained your patience, but I hope that the whole House will support the Bill.

[Mr Speaker]

The hon. Gentleman has never strained my patience. It is always a pleasure to listen to his mellifluous tones. I noted that, as he made his case, he single-handedly relegated me to the status of Deputy Speaker, for which of course I am extremely grateful.

[Peter Aldous]

I apologise for that, Mr Speaker.

Question put and agreed to.

Ordered,

That Peter Aldous, Mr Alistair Carmichael, Mr Angus Brendan MacNeil, Martin Vickers, Danny Kinahan, Charlie Elphicke, Ms Margaret Ritchie, Maria Caulfield, Drew Hendry, Rishi Sunak, Jim Fitzpatrick and James Cartlidge present the Bill.

Peter Aldous accordingly presented the Bill.

Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time on Friday 24 February, and to be printed (Bill 133).

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Peter Aldous and John Bercow

Tuesday 13th September 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

The Minister is very good for colleagues’ knee muscles—or not, as the case may be.

[Peter Aldous (Waveney) (Con)]

Brexit provides the UK with an opportunity to be the global leader in such energy technologies as offshore wind, energy storage, and carbon capture and storage. Can the Secretary of State confirm that the Government will reset energy policy so that the country can take full advantage of this great opportunity?

Supported Housing

Debate between Peter Aldous and John Bercow

Tuesday 12th July 2016 Commons Chamber

[Grahame M. Morris (Easington) (Lab)]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing this debate on a very important subject. Does he acknowledge that the Homes and Communities Agency has identified savings to the taxpayer of £640 million through investment in supported housing?

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I did not interrupt while the hon. Gentleman was in full flow, but I must point out that by very long-standing convention, we cannot have interventions from Opposition Front-Bench Members in Adjournment debates. It looks as though the hon. Gentleman was not aware of that convention, but he is now.

[Peter Aldous]

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I, too, am now aware of that convention, although the hon. Gentleman’s point was a good one.

The development of new supported housing schemes using innovative models is of vital strategic importance to councils providing adult social care services. It will help them meet the care and support needs of an ageing population, making the best use of limited budgets. Such models provide people with greater independence, meet the support needs of individuals and are more cost-effective than residential provision.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Peter Aldous and John Bercow

Tuesday 8th March 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I trust that the hon. Gentleman will have the tribute framed and put in an appropriate place in his constituency office for everyone to observe. He should savour it—it was very, very fulsome.

[Peter Aldous (Waveney) (Con)]

In 2013, my constituent Adele Bellis was the victim of an acid attack. There has been a significant increase in such attacks in the past three to four years. I would be grateful if the Secretary of State could confirm that the Government will bring forward a strategy to address this, particularly the need for tougher sentences. Adele has shown great courage, but she has to live with that attack for the rest of her life.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Peter Aldous and John Bercow

Tuesday 10th November 2015 Commons Chamber

[The Minister for Skills (Nick Boles)]

I am sorry to detain you yet further, Mr Speaker.

Data from the 2014 UK Commission for Employment and Skills employer perspectives survey showed that, in England, about 15% of establishments have offered formal apprenticeships. When we introduce the apprenticeship levy in 2017, we expect that percentage to increase significantly.

[Mr Speaker]

Quite why the Minister supposes that I find it anything other than joyous to sample his mellifluous tones I frankly cannot fathom. I am not being detained by anybody; my duty is to be in the Chamber, and I shall always be here.

[Peter Aldous]

The Apprenticeships Suffolk Business Service has been formed by the chamber of commerce and the county council, and it is already delivering many more apprenticeships. Will my hon. Friend do all he can to ensure that businesses themselves play the major role in increasing the number and quality of apprenticeships?

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Peter Aldous and John Bercow

Wednesday 29th February 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Order. Let us hear Mr Peter Aldous.

[Peter Aldous (Waveney) (Con)]

Q6. High streets across the country, including those in Lowestoft, Beccles and Bungay in my constituency are facing tough trading conditions at present, including the prospect of a 5.6% increase in business rates. Can the Prime Minister outline what the Government are doing to support traders to enable them to grow their businesses and create jobs?