Fuel Prices

Robert Smith Excerpts

Tuesday 15th November 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Reid]

I agree with the hon. Gentleman, and I hope that he will give credit to the Government for what they are doing on fuel duty on islands. The high price of fuel obviously has a great impact on people’s living standards, and makes it difficult for anyone trying to run a business on an island or in a remote rural area.

[Sir Robert Smith (West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine) (LD)]

My hon. Friend is making the important point, which has come out again and again in the debate, that people in remote rural areas in constituencies such as ours have no choice but to use a car. Does he agree that, in the long run, the Government will have to look at a system of variable road user pricing that is based on the choices available and that will enable essential users to pay a lower price?

[Mr Reid]

I certainly agree with my hon. Friend.

There has always been an environmental argument for higher fuel prices, in order to persuade people to use public transport rather than a car. That argument works fine in a city with plenty of bus and train services, but it falls down completely in a rural area, and particularly in a remote rural area such as Argyll and Bute, where in places there is a bus service only on school days. That might be okay for getting schoolteachers to and from work, but it is no good for anyone who needs to be at work outside school hours. The advantage of road user pricing would be that more could be charged for driving on city roads, with a much lower price for driving on a remote rural road. The problem with fuel duty is that it is a blunt instrument, in that the same level of duty is charged in all parts of the country, irrespective of whether public transport alternatives exist or not.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sarah Newton]

I am aware of that concern, especially in rural areas where there is no option but to use a car because of the limitations of public transport.

Hard-working families and mums who are raising their children are the backbone of communities across my constituency. I look forward to hearing from the Minister what more the Government can do to support those families. We all agree that it is vital to sort out the nation’s finances, but we must support people to carry on looking after their families.

[Sir Robert Smith]

The hon. Lady is making an important point, which has been expressed across the House, on the strength of feeling about the need to tackle fuel price rises. Perhaps one challenge that comes from this debate is how the Office for Budget Responsibility calculates the benefit that the Government get from higher fuel prices through the windfall in VAT revenues and other revenues. The OBR argues that that does not count for anything. Perhaps in revisiting that we could also address the argument that a reduction in fuel duty might increase revenues by increasing spending.

[Sarah Newton]

What we are all agreed on today—I hope we will hear this from the Minister—is that we should leave no stone unturned in finding ways to stop the increases in fuel prices and in starting to tackle the problems that we have heard about in this debate.

I will not use the limited time that I have to duplicate the points that have been made by my colleagues, the majority of which I agree with. However, I will develop the issue raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Romsey and Southampton North (Caroline Nokes) about the impact of rising fuel prices on volunteer transport schemes. Like many rural areas, my constituency does not have good public transport. It also has a high proportion of elderly people, many of whom are living in poverty.

We have one acute hospital that serves everybody living in west Cornwall. Volunteer drivers play a vital role in taking people to hospital, to their GPs and to other therapeutic appointments. Volunteer-run minibuses are also very important. One such service, Transport Access People, run by Age UK Cornwall, is based in my constituency. TAP has just under 30,000 clients and its volunteer drivers have clocked up more than 2.6 million miles. It currently has 250 volunteer drivers, but it has lost six in the past couple of months because of rising fuel prices.