Oral Answers to Questions

Jerome Mayhew Excerpts

Thursday 13th October 2022 Commons Chamber

[Katherine Fletcher]

The long-term funding settlement does not include a condition that requires the Mayor to make or report on specific savings targets. It is for the Mayor and TfL to deliver within the funding outlined in the settlement, which provides security until March 2024 and is, I remind my hon. Friend, the fifth package of support the Government have provided to TfL for covid recovery. I remind the House that TfL was originally set up to be independent of central Government in terms of its income and spend. The current settlement returns to that model as a whole, and it is for the London Mayor to decide how he controls his costs and looks for efficiencies within TfL. We will continue to monitor his progress to ensure that taxpayers’ money is used fairly to support London’s commuters.

[Jerome Mayhew (Broadland) (Con)]

12. What recent discussions she has had with Cabinet colleagues on taking steps to support motorists with fuel costs.

[The Secretary of State for Transport (Anne-Marie Trevelyan)]

I regularly discuss fuel prices with Cabinet colleagues, particularly those in the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy. Our Departments are working with the Competition and Markets Authority, which is currently looking at fuel prices. We will continue to work together and with representatives of the fuel industry on this issue to ensure that motorists are paying a fair price at the pump.

[Jerome Mayhew]

Rural constituencies such as mine in Broadland, where public transport is limited, are disproportionately affected by high fuel costs. It is sometimes overlooked that people also have limited choice as to which forecourt to fill up at. I am struck by the effectiveness of the price-comparison requirement in Northern Ireland, which is used to get consistently lower forecourt prices; are we considering that policy in England?

[Anne-Marie Trevelyan]

I agree with my hon. Friend that we need to focus on the challenges in rural areas, including my own constituency, which is why we asked the Competition and Markets Authority to conduct a thorough review. He is also right that although the price of fuel in Northern Ireland has historically been lower than the rest of the UK for several reasons, we absolutely consider the fuel price checker provided by the Consumer Council in Northern Ireland—along with cross-border competition with petrol stations in Ireland and lower overheads—to be part of the reason for those lower costs, and we are considering that possibility to help us to assess our own.