Finance Bill

My hon. Friend makes a good point and saves me the trouble of making it myself; I shall move on. Interestingly, the 30 per cent. rise in fuel costs across the country has resulted in a measurable percentage drop in car use. The theory of the impact of higher price has been tested. However, the interesting thing is that those drops are not reflected in remote rural areas because there people have no choice. I have discussed the principle. As for the detail, I should say that I am grateful to Treasury Ministers. Until a year ago, whenever I raised this issue—as a subject for a debate or even as an amendment—I was totally stonewalled. However, the Chancellor expressed his sympathy in the Treasury Committee and, in answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Argyll and Bute (Mr. Reid), the Financial Secretary, on behalf of the Exchequer Secretary, expressed sympathy and a desire to look at the evidence. As a result, I wrote a paper, which I have circulated and sent to the Chancellor; I hope that the relevant spokesmen for all the parties have received it, because I arranged for it to be sent to them. The paper points out that first there needs to be a workable definition of ““remote rural””. My scheme is based on Scotland because I was able to get all the data on Scotland that I needed. I believe that similar data are available for England and Wales, but I do not have them. Scottish national statistics include what is called the eightfold urban-rural classification, which is shown on a very helpful map with very helpful definitions. For the example set out in my paper, I have chosen band 1, which covers about 2 and a bit per cent. of the population, and between a third and one half of the Scottish land mass. Other classifications could be used, depending on how exactly one wanted to target the scheme.