Finance Bill

It is certainly true that the spot price is now lower than when we had a crisis, but people are still deterred from increasing their investment here or coming here to invest because of that volatility and because the spot price might move up again. Worse still, it could be possible to run out of gas completely. We reached that very difficult position the winter before last, when a shortage was a consequence of the fact that the right decisions had not been taken to put the necessary measures in place. Do I support any EU attempts to solve this problem? Of course I do. What is the EU meant to do? It is meant to apply competition law to the gas industry in Europe so that when there is a shortage in Britain in future and we are sending strong price signals that we would like to buy more gas, more gas is actually forthcoming. It was a disgrace that the EU was unable to get the gas market to clear properly when Britain was bidding much more than the continent for gas, but the gas was not made available. I hope that the EU will solve that problem, but I fear that it is not about to, so the solution must lie here in Britain with a combination of financial measures and giving the right encouragement to the industry to put in the facilities that are needed to get available energy supplies competitively. New businesses here would then meet higher standards of energy conservation and fuel efficiency. Our amendment says that we do not believe that the Government are getting very far in tackling climate change in the Finance Bill—and I agree with my right hon. Friends about that. I noticed that, under the section headed ““Environment?, the Government put through a number of increases in fuel duty rates. I am sure that the Government would say that it is good to make petrol and diesel dearer as it may deter people from using as much at the margin. It is curious to note that in clause 10, there is a 2p increase in biodiesel and bioethanol on a price base of 28p and only a 2p increase in standard petrol and standard diesel on a price base of 48p. The Government are sending out a signal that they want people to stick with the more polluting methods and not switch to biodiesel and bioethanol at the margin, because there is twice the rate of increase on the fuels that are apparently more friendly than there is on the less friendly fuels. If we look at road fuel gas, which I thought should have a lower rate of duty because it is thought to be more environmentally acceptable, we see an increase of almost 3p on a 10.8p base, compared with 2p on a 48p base for standard petrol and diesel. That takes a bit of explaining. Other Members referred to air passenger duty as being a clumsy mechanism for getting to grips with inefficient aircraft—older aircraft in the main—and air services that do not have many people on them. I agree with those who say that if we are to use tax as a means of trying to reduce air passenger journeys at the margin—it will reduce the growth rate rather than cut it—we need to look into ways of trying to capture what is meant to be the mischief here, which is people travelling on planes with not many people on them or travelling on old or dirty planes or a combination of the two. Clearly, there is a green case to be made there. Any Government keen to do something about carbon output should do more audit work than the present Government have so far done on the ways in which carbon dioxide is emitted into the atmosphere. There are some glib assumptions in the present debate that are not always true. It is assumed that trains create no carbon dioxide emissions and are always a good thing because some of the sums are computed on the basis that trains run on nuclear power-generated electricity. However, even electric trains use a mix of electricity, including some electricity produced from fairly old and dirty coal power stations. It is also assumed that buses are always better than cars, but it depends on how many people are travelling on the bus and how old it is. On average, buses are very old and have very few people on them, so the bus is not always the immediate green answer. If we are to take the issue seriously, we need tax incentives to promote new buses and we need a transport Minister who can design bus services that people, along with industry, want to use in order to make it a green option, which it is very often not at the moment. I believe that we will solve most of those difficulties through technology, which is making far bigger strides in greening private motorised transport than in greening either the train or the bus. Similarly, we need to do a proper analysis on the home of those measures that can make a really favourable impact. I understand the Government’s argument that they wish to reward zero-carbon homes. I am not one of those to make cheap jibes about the matter tonight, because I am happy for the Government to reward something, and if it is possible to have a zero-carbon home and people are clever enough to implement it, I am happy for them to get off paying a bit of tax for the privilege. However, it is fair to note that that will not be a great world-beating policy. At the moment, it is difficult to secure a zero-carbon home and there are not many people immediately volunteering to get that particular tax relief.