HC Deb 31 March 1998 vol 309 cc1030-2
31. Mr. Brady

If he will make a statement on the costs of private motoring. [35475]

The Minister for Transport in London (Ms Glenda Jackson)

Information on retail prices is released by the Office for National Statistics. Over the period 1974 to 1997, motoring costs have stayed about the same in real terms. In the year ending December 1997, the cost of private motoring increased by slightly less than the all-items retail prices index.

Mr. Brady

Is the Minister aware that the Chancellor's Budget changes in motoring taxation will impact particularly hard on the low-paid and those on fixed incomes? Is she further aware that a typical unskilled manual worker will pay £66 more a year, and that a retired couple on state pensions will pay another £18 a year? Does she share my concern that the tax will hit those who are least able to pay?

Ms Jackson

I wonder at the hon. Gentleman's somewhat late concern for those who are unable to pay. He may be interested to know that in the last decade of the previous Administration, the cost of motoring in real terms increased by about 5 per cent., compared with increases of about 21 per cent. for rail fares and 16 per cent. for bus and coach fares. There is no distance between those figures and the fact that at that time the previous Administration were forcing through legislation on two particularly unpopular privatizations—those of the buses and of the railways.

Mrs. Anne Campbell

Will my hon. Friend join me in advising hon. Members that, from tomorrow, they will be able to avoid the costs of private motoring by getting on their bikes and claiming the 6.2p a mile cycle allowance?

Ms Jackson

I congratulate my hon. Friend on her work in producing this marked change in funding for transport as it applies to hon. Members, which is a giant step forward in improving the environment for everyone.

Mr. Nicholas Winterton

The new Labour Government are supposedly promoting fairness. I wish to speak for my constituents in the county of Cheshire. My constituency contains a lot of rural areas and remote rural villages. Does she believe it fair that my council tax payers should not only meet a council tax increase of nearly 16 per cent., but face such a huge increase in motoring costs—especially the heavy increase in the price of petrol—when they live in areas where there never has been any public transport, and never will be, despite the limited inducements provided by the Government in the Budget? Is that an example of Labour Government fairness?

Ms Jackson

The Government do not share the hon. Gentleman's philosophy of despair. As my right hon. Friend the Minister of Transport has pointed out, the Chancellor has found £50 million, every year for three years, which will be specifically targeted to create rural bus services. He has also increased the fuel duty rebate to the tune of £40 million. We are as much concerned with reducing and reversing the seemingly inevitable tide of environmental pollution as we are with creating a properly integrated public transport system.

Mr. Maclennan

Does the Minister recognise that in parts of the country where there are no public transport arrangements and bus services to be assisted by the £50 million—remote, rural, sparsely populated areas such as the highlands and islands of Scotland—the price of petrol is rising at a substantially higher rate than in other parts of the country? Will she undertake to examine with other Ministers what is being done in other parts of the European Union to deal with such inequity? Will she consider lowering value added tax on petrol in such areas to increase the possibility of people being removed from their communities by their own cars, and not by the impossibility of living there?

Ms Jackson

Ministers have already pointed out that the Chancellor made his Budget changes because he was cognisant of the fact that people in many rural areas depend exclusively on private cars because of the failures of the previous Administration. The right hon. Gentleman pointed out the particular difficulties in his area. I have touched on the amounts of money that the Chancellor found for the creation of public transport systems in remote areas, and we have also touched on reduced vehicle excise duty for environmentally friendly cars.

I do not believe that it is beyond the wit of people, particularly those whom the right hon. Gentleman represents, to take best advantage of the Government's proposal to create a properly integrated public transport system that meets the needs of far-flung areas.