Torcuil Crichton
Main Page: Torcuil Crichton (Labour - Na h-Eileanan an Iar)Department Debates - View all Torcuil Crichton's debates with the HM Treasury
Rural Fuel Duty Relief
Torcuil Crichton Excerpts(3 days, 9 hours ago)
Westminster HallRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Westminster Hall is an alternative Chamber for MPs to hold debates, named after the adjoining Westminster Hall.
Each debate is chaired by an MP from the Panel of Chairs, rather than the Speaker or Deputy Speaker. A Government Minister will give the final speech, and no votes may be called on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Torcuil Crichton (Na h-Eileanan an Iar) (Lab)
It is an honour to serve under your chairship, Ms Furniss—apologies for not informing you of my intention to speak. I congratulate the hon. Member for North Devon (Ian Roome) on securing this important debate on an issue that affects lots of rural seats, including my own in Na h-Eileanan an Iar.
The 5p a litre discount—“Danny’s discount”, as we called it on its introduction in 2012 when he was Chief Secretary to the Treasury, shamelessly promoting his own constituency and other rural areas—was widely welcomed in the Scottish islands, and it has been adjudged a success, although forgotten by many. If I had been a Lib Dem, I would have taken out posters at every rural fuel station affected to tell people that they were getting 5p off every litre.
Since then, duty seems to have been mostly frozen in Budgets, which means that the rural fuel duty discount has been frozen as well. As the hon. Member for North Devon correctly pointed out, had it gone up by inflation the discount would have gone up as well. I had the Library do some research, and it estimated that in 2021 the scheme cost the Treasury only £5 million. Had it been increased by the consumer prices index, it would have gone up by 2p—£2 million—to 7p a litre. It was extended by the Conservative-Lib Dem coalition in 2015 and now affects 12 seats. The hon. Member estimates 11, but I estimate 12: four Labour, five Lib Dem, two SNP and one Conservative. The Conservative one is the seat of the former Prime Minister, the right hon. Member for Richmond and Northallerton (Rishi Sunak).
There should be wide cross-party support for a review of the rural fuel duty discount, as my colleagues in Scotland have attested. I checked today, and the cheapest fuel I could get in Stornoway, the main town in my constituency, came in at £1.34 per litre. In Glasgow it is £1.28. Far from being a rural fuel discount, there seems to be an urban fuel discount in Scotland, and I am sure that is true of other parts of the UK. So I join colleagues from across the House in calling for a review of the scheme, and perhaps some gifts in forthcoming Budgets, or a signal from the Minister that such a review will be carried out.