Finance Bill

We are all aware of the seriousness of the oil price crisis, which affects every individual, household and business sector in the country. I do not take that lightly, but some hon. Members do not appear to understand that the problem will not go away. We have reached a critical point in history, where global demand for oil exceeds supply. That is the background to this debate, but some hon. Members seem to want to ignore or forget that. The only solution to all the complex issues with which we are grappling—such as variable VED and the fuel duty rise planned for October—is to increase the efficiency with which we use oil and all the other fossil fuels. Any political party that ignores that, or which rejects moves to increase that efficiency, is deceiving itself and the electorate. I was delighted that my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh, South (Nigel Griffiths) was so critical of Opposition Front-Bench Members. Their amendment on VED has left them exposed as blatant opportunists. It has blown out of the water any shred of credibility that they might hope to gain in respect of their policies on the environment, transport and energy. I was also delighted to hear the hon. Member for Taunton (Mr. Browne) demolish the case put by the Opposition Front-Bench spokeswoman—at least until he admitted that he agreed that the VED change should not apply to the existing fleet of vehicles. I turn now to the question of retrospectivity. The VED proposal is not a retrospective, as it will come into force for the first time next year. The changes to the bands are retrospective, but such changes have been implemented in exactly the same way since they were first introduced in 1999. I accept that people are worried about the resale values of vehicles in the second-hand market. However, when motorists change their vehicles—as most do every two or three years—what matters to them is the difference in the cost of doing so. That means that if the value of a 1994 vehicle falls, so will the value of the 1996 vehicle that a person may wish to change up to. It is the cost of changing vehicles that really matters. Of course, what has driven the fall in resale values already is nothing to do with the variable VED that the Government propose for next year; it is entirely to do with the quadrupling of the oil price over the past three years. That is concentrating the minds of motorists, and it is already changing their motoring habits and their choice of vehicle. So the principle that underlies the change to VED is absolutely right, and I congratulate the Government on having the courage to make such a radical change. My only criticism is that it would have been helpful both to have introduced the change before and if the Treasury had shown a little more urgency over the past 11 years in taking on board the need for such changes to environmental taxes. It strikes me from listening to the debate and the debate outside the House that many of those who seem to be fundamentally opposed to both the principle and the detail have not looked at the detail of the proposals. They have not looked at the way in which the current bands will be transformed into the new range of 13 bands in 2009-10. It is absurd to say that this is a massive attack on the low-income households. Some 10 million vehicles will not be affected by the change, or 10 million vehicles will pay less tax, and the drivers of those 10 million vehicles are overwhelmingly people on the lowest incomes. Vehicles registered before March 2001, which are overwhelmingly owned by low-income families, will face no change at all, because they are not affected by the enhanced variable regime. I urge my Labour colleagues, some of whom ought to know better, to look at what the Government propose before making sweeping accusations about the impact of the changes. The principle of variable excise duty is fair, efficient and beneficial to the environment. It concentrates our minds on our individual responsibility to respond to the challenges of climate change, on the cost of motoring and on the efficiency with which we use fossil fuels. Yes, the tax changes are about changing behaviour. They will change behaviour; they have already started to do so in a small way over the past nine years. Of course, all taxes are about changing behaviour. That is one of the key purposes the tax system.