Fuel Duties (Hansard, 3 March 1998)

§ 36. Mr. Gray
What assessment his Department has made of the impact of increasing fuel duties by 6 per cent. a year in real terms on road traffic levels. [30658]

§ Ms Glenda Jackson
The Department's national road traffic forecasts assume that fuel duties will increase by 6 per cent. per annum until 2002. Those forecasts predict that the level of road traffic will increase by 11 per cent. between 1996 and 2002.

§ Mr. Gray
Is the Minister aware of the disproportionately harsh effect that an increase in road fuel duties will have on rural motorists, many of whom rely exclusively on private motor cars to get about? Will she consult her right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer to find ways of deterring the city driver—and particularly the company car driver—while safeguarding the interests of the rural motorist?

§ Ms Jackson
That question comes ill from a party which inflicted enormous damage on rural transport through its policies of rail privatisation and bus deregulation. In the past two decades, rail fares have risen by 75 per cent. and bus fares have risen by 60 per cent. above inflation, yet overall car costs are 6.5 per cent. below inflation. Central to this Government's policies for rural communities is the restoration of real integrated public transport in order to begin to make some sort of inroad into the isolation in many rural communities that is a direct result of the policies of the former Conservative Administration.

§ Mr. Baker
Given that the real cost of motoring has decreased by 6.5 per cent. since 1974, and that rail fares have increased by 75 per cent. or 78 per cent., are the Government prepared to consider in their transport White Paper not simply increasing costs for motorists but using funds to decrease costs for rail and bus users?

§ Ms Jackson
We are reviewing every possible lever of government to ensure that, when we produce our integrated transport policy, it will be clear to the whole country that we are taking a long-term view. This is our window of opportunity to create an integrated transport policy based on an integrated public transport system and to reduce the huge costs that this country has suffered through 18 years of neglect by the previous Administration.

§ Sir Norman Fowler
But my hon. Friend the Member for North Wiltshire (Mr. Gray) was asking about the position of motorists. Will the Minister acknowledge that the car is an absolute necessity for millions of people in rural areas and elsewhere? Will she acknowledge also that hundreds of thousands of people work in the motor industry in areas such as mine in the west midlands—which used to be a rather important consideration as regards industrial policy? Will the Minister recognise that there is no justification for introducing swingeing increases in motor taxation that will simply penalise many millions of ordinary people?

§ Ms Jackson
I repeat that the greatest damage was inflicted on the rural communities by the previous Government's policies of rail privatisation and bus deregulation. I repeat that the issue of rural communities is central to this Government's policies. The rural communities' need for a properly integrated transport policy, which is essential for regeneration in those areas that the former Conservative Government neglected for 20 years, will be central to the Government's policies.