Business of the House

Robert Halfon Excerpts

Thursday 28th November 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lansley]

I seem to remember that the Secretary of State was here last week—on Monday, I think—to answer questions and speak for himself and for the Government, and I am delighted to say that when he does so he contrasts the situation in which we are creating jobs with the one under Labour in which jobs were not being created. He contrasts the situation in which every time people move off benefits and into work, work pays, which was not the case under Labour, ensuring that there is serious benefit associated with working. He also talks about the fact that we have effective systems, including under the Work programme, that are delivering effective routes back into work for the long-term unemployed.

[Robert Halfon (Harlow) (Con)]

Has my hon. Friend seen my early-day motion 784 on fuel duty?

[That this House welcomes the Government's actions cutting fuel duty in 2011 and the freeze in fuel duty until the end of the present Parliament announced by the Chancellor of the Exchequer; and urges the Government, if the economic conditions allow, to continue to cut costs for hard-pressed motorists and to consider a further fuel duty cut.]

May we have a debate on fuel duty, given that in yesterday’s debate on the cost of living the Opposition forgot to mention that they increased fuel duty 12 times and that our Government have frozen it in the lifetime of this Parliament? Will my right hon. Friend urge the Chancellor to go even further and cut fuel duty in the forthcoming Budget?

[Mr Lansley]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend and have seen his early-day motion. I thoroughly endorse the congratulations that the Financial Secretary offered him in yesterday’s debate in recognition of his campaigning. Of course, matters relating to the future of fuel duty are for the Chancellor of the Exchequer, but he has made it clear that by the end of this Parliament, as a consequence of the decisions he has already announced, motorists will be paying 20p per litre less on petrol and diesel duty than would have been the case under Labour’s fuel duty escalator.