Finance (No. 3) Bill

The hon. Gentleman is obviously one of the Labour party's structural deficit refuseniks. He simply refuses to accept that the deficit exists. I am sure that he would also refuse to accept that his party left unemployment 400,000 people higher by the end of its term in office. We understand the problems that our economy faces and the Budget was all about tackling them. I will turn to the substance of the amendment. For motorists to realise the benefits of the cut in fuel duty, retailers need to pass it on at the forecourt. If the cut in fuel duty had been fully passed on to average pump prices, including VAT, they would have been 1.2p per litre lower. The amendment seeks a published assessment of the degree to which the cut fed through to pump prices. As I said, we have already published a tax information and impact note that sets out our analysis of the impact of the cut. Following the Budget, the website petrolprices.com, which gives independent average daily prices and which the previous Government used to track prices, showed that average pump prices fell by approximately 0.8p per litre between 23 and 28 March. It can be clearly seen that the reduction in fuel duty largely fed through to prices at the pump. Therefore, prices are lower due to our actions and motorists are benefiting from the cut in duty. Let us not forget that average pump prices are approximately 6p per litre lower as a result of the cut in duty and our scrapping of the previous Government's planned escalator, which they would have gone ahead with.