Finance Bill

I shall take the opportunity to discuss the full string of amendments and new clauses that all come under the title of ““Cost of motoring””. So far we have had a narrowly confined discussion on vehicle excise duty, and although that is an extremely important issue—it is probably the most high profile of the amendments and new clauses before us—it is by no means the only one. I am talking about the cost of motoring as a whole. I suppose that the reasons it has become such a contentious political area and aroused so much public interest are threefold. First, there has been a dramatic increase in oil prices in recent months. Secondly, there is the issue of environmental taxation and whether the Government are applying it fairly, and thirdly there is a squeeze on household income, so people are inevitably more price-sensitive than at times when wages increase faster. To set the scene before I turn to the new clauses, I shall quickly go through each of those factors in turn. Supply and demand clearly drive oil prices around the world. It impossible to say at this juncture whether oil prices are spiking. We do not know whether we are at the beginning of a longer-term trend or whether prices will be higher or lower a year from now. All we can say with some certainty is that the trends appear to be upwards. That is a logical inference; one need only look at the number of two-car or even three-car households in the UK compared with 10 or 20 years ago. One need only consider countries such as China and India: in the big cities there, most journeys were undertaken by bicycle 20 years ago; now a large number of vehicles are being driven daily. There is clearly rising global demand for oil, and in the short term it is hard to satisfy that steeply increasing demand. People around the world are wondering whether it will be hard in the medium to long term as well. The problem is not unique to the UK.