Fuel Duty

William Bain Excerpts

Monday 12th November 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr William Bain (Glasgow North East) (Lab)]

I was intrigued by the Economic Secretary’s arguments when he moved the amendment. He is no longer in his place, but wherever he is at the moment, I hope he can afford enough fuel to return to planet Earth, as that was not a place he was able to inhabit much during his contribution. He spoke of the fanfare of international approval for the Chancellor’s policies, yet the OECD says that this year demand in our country will be one tenth of that in the United States and in the lowest fifth among EU countries. He said this Government dealt in costed spending commitments, from the very Dispatch Box where a few weeks ago the Prime Minister caused chaos in the energy industry by saying every consumer would be on the lowest possible tariff. The Economic Secretary also boasted about taking action on high commodity prices on behalf of a Government who are blocking the enactment of a global Dodd-Frank Bill in line with the successful approach in the United States.

Last week’s election in the United States showed that for voters both across the Atlantic and in the United Kingdom the key issue is living standards. During the longest journey out of an economic slump in Britain for 140 years, living standards have declined at a more prolific rate than during the recessions presided over by the Conservative party in the 1980s and 1990s. As last month’s Office for National Statistics study of well-being showed, on the net national incomes measure, incomes in the second quarter of 2012 were 13.2% lower than before the start of the great recession in 2008. We should be under no illusion: a real economic recovery for millions of lower and middle-income people in this country will not happen until these trends show signs of being reversed.

[Mr Redwood]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the biggest fall in living standards occurred on Labour’s watch, when boom went to bust?

[Mr Bain]

Tax credits helped to sustain family incomes in that period, but that is precisely the part of the tax and benefit system that is under such great assault from the Government the right hon. Gentleman supports.

We need a long-term strategy to tackle declining living standards, but there are short-term measures we can take now that will help ordinary families. We can have a cut in VAT and not proceed with the 3p rise in fuel duty next January. Both those measures would help to restore growth to an economy that has been starved of it for a year, and which is smaller now than at the time of the Chancellor’s comprehensive spending review of October 2010.

Despite a decrease in the headline consumer prices index inflation rate from 5.2% to 2.2% since last October, costs of basic goods such as electricity and food are going up. Average electricity bills are up by £200 since the coalition took office, taking the average bill to £1,310 a year. Costs for childminders for the over-2s in Scotland have risen at nearly twice the CPI inflation rate this year. Living costs are, therefore, soaring for millions of people.

[Fiona O’Donnell]

My hon. Friend missed out one boast the Minister made, which was about the creation of private sector jobs. In my constituency, many of those jobs are for care workers on the minimum wage and on a zero-hours contract. Those workers need a car to be able to sustain even that level of employment.

[Mr Bain]

I entirely agree. Most of the jobs that have been created over the last couple of years have been part-time, insecure, low-hours posts. We have soaring under-employment in our country, with as many as 3.3 million people unable to secure sufficient working hours to make work pay. Nothing in the amendment would deal with that trend.

Combined with a VAT rise under this Government, fuel duty rises are particularly regressive. In 2009-10 the poorest quintile paid 3.5% of their disposable income in fuel duty, compared with just 1.8% paid by the top quintile. Overall, in the first year of this Government indirect taxes took 31% of the disposable income of people in the lowest fifth of earners, compared with just 13% among the wealthiest fifth of earners, and that was an increase from the previous fiscal year. According to the latest ONS study of factors affecting the retail prices index and CPI inflation measures, two of the major factors driving upward pressures were the price of clothing and footwear, which rose by 4.7% between August and September this year, and the rising cost of motor fuel, with petrol up by 3.9p per litre and diesel up by 3.5p per litre, compared with falls of 0.3p per litre in the previous year. These changes contributed 0.12% to the shift in the CPI inflation rate. In the year to this September, motor fuel costs alone rose by 2.8%. The case for action is therefore clear.

All these trends must be considered in the context of our low growth. The International Monetary Fund recently downgraded its estimate for UK GDP by 0.6% for this year and by a further 0.3% for next year. That is a crushing verdict, showing that the Government’s policies have sucked even more demand from the economy—as much as an additional £76 billion given the new evidence of the destructive multiplier effects of the Chancellor’s austerity measures. As the National Institute of Economic and Social Research has established, implementing the Government’s preferred rise in fuel duty in January would further weaken growth by 0.1% of GDP next year and keep unemployment higher than it needs to be some 48 months since the downturn began.

That is why I hope Members across the House will tonight take this opportunity to release some of the pressures ordinary households and businesses are facing by voting to postpone any rise in fuel duty until at least April.

[Mr Alan Reid (Argyll and Bute) (LD)]

The hon. Gentleman referred only to postponing the fuel duty increase. I want to put it on record that I think the Government should cancel the increase, and I hope they will do so. Why is the hon. Gentleman only in favour of postponing it? Why not cancel it?

[Mr Bain]

If the hon. Gentleman has the courage of the convictions he has just expressed, he should join us in the Lobby tonight. That will be the evidence his constituents will be looking for tomorrow morning.

On incomes, millions of ordinary people are under huge pressure because of the collapse in real wages, which has hit particularly hard since the onset of the current recession.

[Pete Wishart (Perth and North Perthshire) (SNP)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr Bain]

I am running out of time, and I am sure the hon. Gentleman will have a chance to make his own speech.

Since 2007, real wages have declined by about 4% for the vast majority of ordinary people, damaging their spending power and weakening prospects for a consumer-led economic recovery. In my constituency, almost three in 10 workers, including half of all the 10,000 part-time workers, earn less than the living wage of £7.45 an hour. The increases in fuel duty have hit them especially hard. As the Resolution Foundation’s recent Commission on Living Standards report established, just 12p in every £1 of growth generated in Britain finds its way into the pay packets of workers in the lower half of the income scale. They need help on fuel costs tonight.

Britain stands at a crossroads. Without a change in policy, people will be no better off in 2020 than they were in 2001, but with the right kind of reforms on pay, tax and benefits, that can be reversed and we can see the gap between rich and poor falling once again. Tonight we can make our contribution to supporting growth and improving the living standards of our constituents over the next few months, by rejecting the Government amendment and boosting much needed job creation by cutting fuel duty.