Finance Bill

My hon. Friend’s comments are self-explanatory. Listening to the debate, and thinking about the impact that higher fuel prices are having in many rural constituencies, draws my mind back to comments made by the current Chancellor—the Prime Minister of the very near future—on the need for child poverty to be recognised and for action to be taken across Departments to tackle it. Fuel poverty is recognised more widely, and the Government have acted to address that problem. We have raised the specific example of people on low incomes who spend a relatively high proportion of their income on fuel to get around, and to get to their jobs. I am interested to hear how the Treasury thinks that not having proposals to tackle that problem is having an impact on fuel poverty. When the new Prime Minister is in his place, perhaps the Government will need to think again about taking action if they are to hit their poverty targets.