Fuel Duty

Robin Walker Excerpts

Monday 12th November 2012 Commons Chamber

[Martin Vickers]

I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention. Yes, the situation that he describes in his constituency is very similar to mine. However, it is welcome that North Lincolnshire council, which is Conservative controlled, is particularly mindful of the impact of motoring costs and is at present considering the possibility of extending free parking, which has been an issue in the local area. That shows how local authorities can help to boost the local economy, particularly the high streets.

When I was preparing for this debate, I skimmed through the debate that we had about a year ago, to which I contributed. That debate took place before the Chancellor made a previous reduction. I noticed that I referred to fairness. I caution the Government again that it is rather dangerous always to talk about fairness. Of course all policies are intended to be fair. I am well aware that the Government want to be fair, but human nature being what it is, a policy is fair only if it benefits us. If it benefits our neighbour, we tend to think it is unfair. I urge the Government to reflect that when they talk about these issues.

It matters not whether our constituents are white-collared, blue-collared or dog-collared, for that matter—they are all hit by fuel increases. The Chancellor may already have made his decision, but if not I urge him to reflect on the contributions that have been made this evening. It is a vital subject that will not go away. The idea that the Labour party has proposed tonight, that we abandon the rise or cancel it for three months, is nonsense. If the Opposition are trying to tempt Conservative rebels into the Lobby, they should at least have a positive view and suggest three years, rather than just three months. It is pathetic.

[Mr Robin Walker (Worcester) (Con)]

I thoroughly agree with my hon. Friend that the Opposition motion is massively unambitious. Does he agree that the research we have seen from FairFuelUK shows that we should actually be cutting fuel duty, rather than freezing it or postponing an increase?

[Martin Vickers]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. I have certainly studied the FairFuelUK report. Indeed, the all-party group on fair fuel, which is chaired by my hon. Friend the Member for Harlow, has done considerable work on it, and I urge the Government to reflect on its recommendations.

I know that the Government have listened to the debate. Their amendment makes it clear that they want to do more to help with the cost of living, but who could disagree with that? What we actually want to see is some positive response from them. I know that they are not going to announce this evening what will be in the autumn statement, but we are three weeks away from something that could have a decisive impact on the local economy, certainly in my constituency, and a real impact on hard-working households there. I will conclude by saying to the Labour party, “Get your act together.” I will certainly be supporting the Government in the Lobby this evening and know that is in the best interests of those I represent.

Beer Duty Escalator

Robin Walker Excerpts

Monday 2nd July 2012 Commons Chamber

[Gavin Williamson]

The hon. Gentleman has made an important point about how difficult it is for many pub and brewing companies to invest more money in generating new jobs and products in a sector in which we are world leaders. We in the United Kingdom are clearly paying far more duty than the European average. Although we consume only 13% of the beer consumed in the European Union, we pay 40% of the tax bill. I do not often talk about the need for European harmonisation, but I should like us to harmonise with the Germans, who only pay a tenth as much beer duty on their pints. Perhaps we should explore that idea further.

[Mr Robin Walker (Worcester) (Con)]

My hon. Friend mentioned new products a moment ago. The Firefly, a pub in Worcester, recently embarked on the first new brewing venture in the city for 16 years. I am sure that the pub, and Worcestershire, would support my hon. Friend’s campaign.

[Gavin Williamson]

My hon. Friend has made a valid point. Not only is everyone in South Staffordshire rooting for the ending of the beer duty escalator, but so are those in the great county town of Worcester. Obviously their pubs are not as fantastic as those in South Staffordshire, but we all have our crosses to bear in life.

We recognise that the Government face a great challenge. It is not easy to do what they are doing, and Treasury Ministers carry a burden on their shoulders that I am sure none of us on the Back Benches would wish to carry.

LIBOR (FSA Investigation)

Robin Walker Excerpts

Monday 2nd July 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Osborne]

We are not proposing to put complex derivative products inside the retail ring fence; that is not part of our proposals. As I say, we are coming forward with plans to implement the Vickers reforms and I hope that the hon. Lady welcomes that.

[Mr Robin Walker (Worcester) (Con)]

We have had regrets but no apology from Opposition Front Benchers. What our constituents really want is action. May I commend the Chancellor for taking action to set up a swift parliamentary inquiry? Will he make sure that the proceeds from any fines go to the taxpayer, not the banks?

[Mr Osborne]

I thank my hon. Friend. I say again that I came to the House just last Thursday and said that I would look to see what I could do on the fines. I have now come forward, a few days later, and said that we are going to take those fines—including the fines that Barclays will pay—and make sure that they are put to the public benefit, not to the benefit of the financial services industry. We are acting extremely swiftly on this. As I said, I would have thought that it was in everyone’s interests that we get on and deal with the matter in the coming months.

Green Economy

Robin Walker Excerpts

Thursday 28th June 2012 Commons Chamber

[Caroline Nokes]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that, but my point is that if home developers were obliged to pay into a central fund, we could start to ensure that people in social housing and those on the lowest incomes do not merely think about cheaper energy-efficient measures, but have a grant to enable them to achieve that. The hon. Gentleman mentioned insulation earlier, but improvement is possible from double glazing, too.

Particularly at a time when my constituency and parts of the south-east are under water stress, we must start to look at finding better ways to use our water. We need to be more efficient through rain water harvesting, using grey water and taking simple measures to improve sanitaryware systems, so that the cistern from the lavatory uses less water. All these measures could be done very cheaply indeed.

According to the Energy Saving Trust, each person in the average UK home currently uses 150 litres of water a day. Level 6 of the code for sustainable homes seeks to reduce that usage to just 80 litres—but, significantly, that applies to new-build properties. As I have already said, however, they are a tiny proportion of our housing stock, and far greater savings—both in litres per day and cost to the consumer—can be achieved through working on older properties.

Independent research has indicated that by shifting the focus on to the existing housing stock of 25 million homes, rather than on the already energy-efficient new-build sector, great efficiencies and more value for money can be delivered for the nation as a whole. That scheme would mean that existing home owners would see reduced energy bills, social housing associations would benefit from reduced maintenance costs and local employment would receive a boost, thanks to the number of trades people needed to carry out the work. New home buyers would be spared additional costs, which would in turn help to ensure the viability of many development projects—a critical factor for the UK economy given the already chronic under-building due to economic constraints.

[Mr Robin Walker (Worcester) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on her speech. She is making some important points about both water and heating, and about the work that can be generated. Does she agree that it is vital for the Government, when designing schemes, to work closely with the installers, who are key to people’s decisions about how to implement these policies in their homes?

[Caroline Nokes]

My hon. Friend is right. The Government must work hand in hand with industry and the installers to ensure that we come up with schemes that not only look good on paper, but work in the real world.

Evidence suggests that if the hearts and minds of consumers are to be won over to energy efficiencies, there must be demonstrable cost savings for them. In response to a survey conducted in April this year, 41% of people said that they would be prepared to pay nothing more to make energy efficiency improvements in their homes. A scheme of this kind has the potential to provide grants for householders, enabling work to be done at no cost to them while also saving money, reducing emissions, and helping the Government to meet their targets. Surely that it is a win-win situation.

I have mentioned water efficiency. A company operating in my constituency, i2O, has developed the advanced pressure management solution, the world’s first system to monitor and control water pressure through a pipe network. It is an extremely successful design which has been deployed throughout the world, and is most widely deployed to regulate water flow and manage leakages. Last month South East Water awarded the company a £1.5 million contract to help to reduce its leakage problems. In view of last month’s drought conditions throughout the country, I am sure that such technology will be needed more and more, and I am pleased that South East Water wanted to install the system as soon as possible. I urge the Minister to support companies such as i2O which are employing innovative and sustainable ways of managing water levels and distribution.

Let me again congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for South Thanet on securing the debate. I look forward to hearing the Minister’s response.

--- Later in debate ---

[Andrew George (St Ives) (LD)]

I am pleased to have an opportunity to speak in this important debate. I warmly congratulate the hon. Member for South Thanet (Laura Sandys) on driving the initiative for the debate and on making a telling and significant opening speech in which she set it on the right course.

So far, speakers have not much reflected on why it is necessary for us to pursue a low-carbon future—apart, that is, from the right hon. Member for Hitchin and Harpenden (Mr Lilley), who is no longer in his place—and have accepted that policy as a given. As a responsible and significant country that wishes to lead the way internationally—for example, at the recent Rio+20 summit —we should be setting the standards in responding to the challenges facing the globe. The recent Stern report set out the significant impact that rapid climate change will have on people and their lifestyles around the globe, and on the world’s economy, including this country’s economy, if we fail properly to get on top of the problem.

I am glad that that is now seen as the relatively unarguable fact of the matter. Although there are some who advance the case—I will not say that it is a respectable case, but I respect the fact that they argue it—of the climate change deniers, who are the modern equivalent of the flat earth society, on a relatively un-peer reviewed and un-scientific basis, it is good that this Government, the previous Government and Members of this House generally take a reasonable approach to the challenges that we face.

The global market in low-carbon goods and services is currently worth £3.2 trillion and may be worth as much as £4 trillion by 2015. It employs 28 million people worldwide and, unlike many sectors, is growing at a rate of 4%, which is faster than the world’s GDP. The nub of the debate is that we can either ignore that growing global market in low-carbon goods and services and say that Britain wants no part of it, or say that we want not only to be part of it, but to be at the cutting edge. Britain should provide the necessary economic certainty for the players in that market to develop low-carbon technology in this country. We must give the right signals and encouragement to those industries. The underbelly of such certainty in Britain can provide the basis on which companies can test and develop those industries, and then become world leaders and develop an export market for the UK.

Fundamentally, that is what I believe lies behind what the Government are doing, and theirs is the right approach. They are putting the investment in and trying to read the messages in the market itself. I know that the Government have had some difficulty with solar photovoltaics, but the fact is that the cost of solar PV reduced by more than 50% in one year. It is difficult for any Government to have a system that can respond effectively to that and not create distortions in the market. We need to have the right incentives to encourage these industries, but the incentives must work in a manner that creates certainty for the long term. Despite the difficulty that was experienced last year, I am pleased that there is now a great deal more certainty and a formula in the feed-in tariffs system that will take the solar PV industry forward to a point where ultimately, in only a few years time, it will not need any fiscal stimulus to continue succeeding and to be one of the most significant players in our economy.

[Mr Robin Walker]

Worcester Bosch, a manufacturer of solar thermal energy, is based in my constituency. One of its concerns is that the enormous subsidies for solar PV under the unreformed feed-in tariffs system discouraged people from investing in solar thermal. Does my hon. Friend agree that having a more sensible and sustainable system will encourage the development of all technologies?

[Andrew George]

My hon. Friend makes the point very well. We must get the balance of the fiscal incentives right. The hon. Member for Southampton, Test (Dr Whitehead) made the point to the right hon. Member for Hitchin and Harpenden that the European rules do not rule out establishing incentives to develop and then roll out new technologies to promote the low-carbon economy.

West Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly in my constituency have for many years been at the cutting edge of many renewable technologies. We had the first wind farms at Delabole and Cold Northcott in the late ’80s. The geothermal project at Rosemanowes, near Penryn, has spawned a number of developments involving ground source heat pumps and deep geothermal, which I believe will be a significant driver of low-carbon technologies into the future. I am also pleased that the Government are investing in geothermal energy. More of Cornwall’s landscape is taken over with large solar PV than other parts of the country—Cornwall is famed for its sun, and it rarely rains. We want to harness that technology.

The first place in the UK to roll out commercial-scale wave technology is also in my area. That required significant Government investment—from the previous Government and the current one. We are at the critical point of ensuring that we plug companies into the system and that it works.

With all those sectors, Cornwall wishes to be seen as the green peninsula—the cutting edge or blueprint from which others can learn. The Eden project is an exemplar of rolling out such projects. It is not just the technologies that hope for opportunities, but companies. For example, Fugro Seacore, an offshore drilling company—I must declare an interest: my son works there—is helping to put in the footings for offshore wind. Such companies hope to have improved opportunities as a result of the fiscal measures that the Government are putting in place to promote low-carbon technology. I hope all hon. Members support this important motion.

Amendment of the Law

Robin Walker Excerpts

Wednesday 21st March 2012 Commons Chamber

[Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)]

The trouble with Budgets is that they tend to operate on a five-year cycle that has no relation to the actual cycles of the resources that we profess to manage. The immediacy of the political triumphs over the requirements of the actual.

The focal point of this Budget is 2016-17, when the Government hope that the hole in the public finances will have been filled, but interestingly four fifths—more than £90 billion—of that filler comes from cuts in services and benefits, while only one fifth comes from rises in tax. Yet 73% of the tax rises have already been put in place, and less than 20% of the cuts in services and benefits have happened.

The Government might think it prudent to delay the pain, but Government Back Benchers might care to reflect on what that has done to their electoral prospects.

[Mr Robin Walker (Worcester) (Con)]

The hon. Gentleman mentions the figure of £90 billion, but will he acknowledge that the £36 billion reduction in interest payments, which we have already seen, makes a substantial contribution to that?

[Barry Gardiner]

The hon. Gentleman refers to interest payments, but he knows that on that score this Government are paying out £150 billion more than they predicted, so his argument does not hold up.

A Budget is a mechanism for the distribution and allocation of scarce resources, so let us examine what this Budget means for a child born today. A child born in my constituency today brings us this message: “By the time I reach my 18th birthday, the world will require 30% more fresh water, 45% more energy and 50% more food.” This child is part of the generation that will see the global population move from 7 billion to 10 billion people. How do we respond to this child? Do we become the most selfish generation of the most selfish species in our planet’s history? Or do we become the generation that understood that justice and sustainability are essentially the same thing? If you want peace in the world, create justice. If you want justice, live sustainably.

We must get away from both sides of the political divide arguing that they uniquely possess the key to growth. We listen to the stale arguments about whether more spending now will raise growth and reduce the deficit more quickly, or whether less borrowing now will ultimately be a surer path to bring our economy back into GDP growth. But what both sides are talking about is yesterday’s economics: Hayek pitted against Keynes.

The Chancellor wants to set markets free and insists that we cannot spend our way out of debt, but he wilfully ignores Hayek’s equal insistence that the boom gets started with an expansion of credit—the very liquidity that the Chancellor has told the banks they must provide for business. Hayek would have been appalled to find his theories invoked by a Chancellor literally printing money through quantitative easing. In Hayek’s view, that leads only to unrealistically low interest rates and to the cycle of boom and bust starting all over again.

Keynes of course believed in consumption-led growth as an economic stimulus, but he did not live in a world of 7 billion people. He assumed that growth was sustainable and natural resource was, for practical purposes, infinite. We know that it is not. As a result, we have an obligation to make sure that growth is sustainable, not simply to assume that it will be.

Fuel Duty (Northern Ireland)

Robin Walker Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd February 2012 Westminster Hall

[Miss Smith]

I understand that point. The topic could be on a long list of what the two Governments discuss, and I note positive aspects of those discussions in the realm of transport, such as acknowledgement of the importance of the land border in setting air passenger duty rates, of which the hon. Lady must be aware. We also acknowledge the significance of the land border to fuel fraud—returning to that important subject—but there is a point to stop short of in harmonising tax rates.

I shall plough on swiftly with some helpful points. First, there is absolutely no doubt that the cost of fuel remains difficult for families and businesses up and down the country, as demonstrated in the debate. I am also sure that many of the hon. Lady’s constituents joined the 100,000-signature petition delivered to the Government last autumn and to which we responded in the House. Our response—indeed, I personally responded —recognised that the price of petrol, which is different from the rate of duty, is extraordinarily high in many people’s eyes. The price is the result of a combination of the duty and various global factors, which she has already mentioned, so it is not fully in the control of the Government to say, “The total cost of your litre of fuel shall be this.” What a responsible Government must do, however, is listen, consider and respond.

The Government have eased the burden on motorists by £2.5 billion up to 2012-13. We started by cutting fuel duty by a penny per litre from 6 pm on Budget day. We cancelled the previous Government’s fuel duty escalator and introduced the fair fuel stabiliser, which I shall come on to shortly. Our response also includes the deferment of last month’s duty increase to August and the cancellation of the original increase planned for August, ensuring genuine help for motorists through only one inflation increase this year. The fuel duty changes support motorists throughout the country, including Northern Ireland—I do not see a distinction—because any motorist can be approximately 10p per litre better off as a result of our Government’s actions. The hon. Lady asked me to acknowledge businesses. An average haulier will be better off by £4,400 because of our fuel duty and vehicle excise duty actions, which I am sure she will welcome in her part of the world, as everyone else does.

[Mr Robin Walker (Worcester) (Con)]

Will the Minister give way?

[Miss Smith]

I am terribly sorry, but I must proceed.

The hon. Lady asked me about how the Government might seek to manage the effect of oil prices in the longer term, and I want to give a few details about the fair fuel stabiliser. The Chancellor has been clear that we cannot take risks with the public finances, although the hon. Lady spoke several times of the Treasury needing to shoulder its share of the difficulties faced by the country. Government coffers, however, are public coffers. The Treasury has employees, but there is no separate entity known as the Treasury that could or could not be shouldering a share. The Treasury simply has a role in managing, as best it can, the public resources to which we all contribute, whether we be citizens, motorists, businesses or any other category that anyone can think of.

My point about the fair fuel stabiliser is that any support we provide to the motorist needs to be paid for. As oil and gas production is more profitable in times of high oil prices, it is fair for companies to make an additional contribution. As part of the stabiliser, therefore, the supplementary charge on oil and gas companies was increased in the Budget, meaning that when oil prices are high, fuel duty will increase by inflation only. If the oil price falls, we will reintroduce the fuel duty escalator and reduce the supplementary charge on a staged and affordable basis.

Coming swiftly to a conclusion to allow us to finish on time, I assure hon. Members that, beyond fuel duties, the Government remain fully committed to working with the Northern Ireland Executive to achieve the common objective of rebalancing the Northern Irish economy, to which the hon. Lady referred. Colleagues are aware of wider work looking at how best to achieve such rebalancing, including the ministerial working group chaired by my colleague the Exchequer Secretary. I understand that the group is making good progress and is due to meet again in early March.

We have recognised the impact of record prices on businesses and families, whether on the mainland or in Northern Ireland. The previous Government had no credible plan to deal with the debts that they created or with motorists, as shown by the escalator that they sought to continue. We, by contrast, have listened and responded: we cut fuel duty, we scrapped the escalator and we have ensured that there will be only one inflation-only increase in fuel duty this year. We continue to have a long-term plan for support in the form of the fair fuel stabiliser. I think that the hon. Lady will agree that that is a reasonable position to be in considering the difficulties faced by this whole country, given the resources left to it by the Government represented by the hon. Gentleman sitting to her left, the hon. Member for Ealing North (Stephen Pound).

Question put and agreed to.

Fuel Prices

Robin Walker Excerpts

Tuesday 15th November 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Robin Walker (Worcester) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Harlow (Robert Halfon) on his passionate speech, on his many campaigns on this issue and on securing this debate, and I welcome the huge interest and support across the House for it. The price of fuel remains, week in, week out, one of the most important and pressing issues raised by people in Worcester. It is an issue on which I, like many other hon. Members, am determined to see real progress.

I wholeheartedly support today’s motion and was proud to put my name to it as a long-term advocate of fuel price stabilisers. I want to put forward one more argument for action that has not been sufficiently covered in this debate and I want to raise a couple of further concerns, which I hope the Minister will be able to respond to in her reply.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Cleethorpes (Martin Vickers) set out and as the hon. Member for East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow (Mr McCann) acknowledged, the Government have to pay attention to balancing the budget. The motion notes, however, that fuel duty revenues are lower now than they were in 2008 despite the fact that the level of taxation has increased since. In my view, that makes but understates the case for rethinking further increases. As I have argued in Westminster Hall debates, that case was admirably set out by the Office for Budget Responsibility when it first looked at, and then rejected, the idea of a fair fuel stabiliser. It concluded that although higher prices added to Government revenues in the short term, by increasing the take from fuel duty, their longer-term impact was to reduce Government revenue through the combination of discouraging usage and the wider negative impacts of high fuel costs on the economy. Although the OBR used this argument to reject the original plan for a stabiliser, I have said many times that the logic of its argument is that lower fuel duties could result in higher tax revenues, and I am happy to put that case again today.

We should look not only at the impact on fuel duty receipts themselves, substantial though they might be, but consider the effect of sky-high prices on business profits and thence corporation tax, their impact on the rate of inflation and thus the rate of increase in costs to Government in everything from wage inflation to benefit uprating. We should consider the depressing impact of high fuel costs on the whole economy and in particular on business and enterprise.

[Mr Graham Stuart (Beverley and Holderness) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that it is a central Conservative insight that we can lower the rate and up the take so that small companies in rural areas such as mine are able to do more work, earn more, pay more tax and keep the economy going?

[Mr Walker]

I completely agree with my hon. Friend. This is one great advantage of cutting fuel duty rather than cutting VAT, which Labour Members argue for.

[Mark Pawsey (Rugby) (Con)]

I would like to make the point that a lot of freight companies are filling up on the continent. If we reduced the amount of duty, particularly on diesel, they would be encouraged to fill up in the UK, which would bring additional revenue to the Exchequer.

[Mr Walker]

My hon. Friend brilliantly pre-empts my next point. I was going to say that most business users also use diesel, which, as my hon. Friend the Member for Romsey and Southampton North (Caroline Nokes) pointed out, is an important issue. One concern I particularly wanted to raise is the fact that diesel in this country is so much more expensive than anywhere else in Europe. I am told that this is not simply a matter of taxation as the rates of fuel duty are set equally for unleaded petrol and for diesel, but of refining capacity, which the hon. Member for Ynys Môn (Albert Owen), who is no longer in his place, also mentioned. Also relevant is the fact that North sea oil has traditionally been better suited for the production of unleaded petrol than for diesel. However, it does seem extraordinary that one can drive across most of Europe seeing prices for diesel consistently lower than those for unleaded, only to arrive in this country and find that there is a 7p differential in the other direction. In fact, we are one of the few countries that treats diesel and unleaded exactly the same for tax purposes, and many others, including France and Spain, tax diesel much less than we do.

Perhaps I should declare an interest at this point as the driver of a rather battered Y-registration diesel Golf with more than 150,000 miles on the clock, but my prime interest is that diesel tends to be the fuel of choice for business users and the freight and haulage industries. Its cost and the extent of taxation on it thus have a more direct impact on our economy and on prices in the shops than does unleaded petrol. Given the importance of diesel to business and the economy, will the Minister give special consideration to steps that could be taken to encourage the closure or reversal of that price differential, whether it be directly through fuel duty or indirectly through encouraging investment in refining capacity.

Like others, including my hon. Friend the Member for Wyre Forest (Mark Garnier), I am very concerned at the wide geographical price differentials within the UK. Although many have argued that this is a matter of rural sparsity and have put the case for a rural fuel derogation, which I accept, I want to put the case for urban centres such as Worcester that find themselves paying a higher price for fuel than their neighbours or competitors.

[Mr McCann]

Is the hon. Gentleman against a free market in the fuel industry?

[Mr Walker]

I was just coming on to that, but I am very much in favour of the free market and want to encourage competition.

A glance at petrolprices.com shows the average price for diesel in Worcester yesterday was 142p compared to 139p in Cheltenham or 140p in Birmingham—two cities that it sits between. For the lowest priced unleaded, however, the differential increases from that 2p or 3p to a staggering 5p, with Worcester drivers paying 134p compared to 129p in Birmingham or Cheltenham. My constituents regularly raise concerns about that. They fear that there is insufficient competition affecting prices in Worcester. I realise that it is not the Minister’s job to set prices everywhere in the country, but I would appreciate a reassurance from her that the Government are determined to see active competition between retailers, and are doing all they can to stimulate it.

Other Members have mentioned supermarkets. I have been led to believe by constituents that Tesco and Sainsbury have changed their policies, and that rather than trying to be the lowest-price retailers of petrol in any given area, they now aim to sell at the average price for the area. Their purpose may be to prevent accusations of predatory pricing, but this is a very counter-productive way of doing that. I hope that the arrival of a new Asda store in Worcester next year will increase competition in the area.

Like many other Members, I am worried about the fact that constituents who need their cars to travel to work, and businesses in my constituency that need to use road transport, are paying too much for their fuel, and that too much of that cost consists of tax. I welcome the steps that the Government have already taken to protect our economy from the previous Government’s planned increases, the fact that fuel is 6p cheaper now than it would have been otherwise, and the Chancellor’s declaration that he wants to

“put fuel into the tank of the British economy.”—[Official Report, 23 March 2011; Vol. 525, c. 966.]

I believe that it has never been more important to do so, and I commend the motion to the House.

Arch Cru Compensation Scheme

Robin Walker Excerpts

Wednesday 19th October 2011 Westminster Hall

[Mr Robin Walker (Worcester) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on the points he is making. On the section 14 inquiry, does he not agree that one of the most important things is for investors and their financial advisers to be able to make an informed decision? An informed decision cannot be made until that inquiry has happened and the real bases of the problems and of any compensation have been set out in detail.

[Alun Cairns]

My hon. Friend makes a valid point. When such problems are combined with questions about the legal time frame, investors who have experienced wrongdoing are in the unenviable position of making decisions about receiving compensation or pursuing it through the courts, without there being a thorough investigation of who is responsible.

I thank hon. Members for their support, and the hon. Member for Rutherglen and Hamilton West for securing this debate. There will be many more such debates until justice is achieved for investors.

Road Fuel Duties

Robin Walker Excerpts

Tuesday 13th September 2011 Westminster Hall

[Graeme Morrice]

I do not want to get bogged down in a debate on the constitution or the whole question of more powers for the Scottish Parliament. I certainly support the Scotland Bill, which we have been discussing, and fiscal autonomy for Scotland—but not independence, of course.

[Jim Dobbin in the Chair]

The impact has also been felt by retailers, with Asda stating last month that its customers were cutting back on trips to its stores because of high fuel prices. It estimated that families have, on average, £9 less disposable income each week compared with this time last year, largely due to increased petrol costs. So there is absolute agreement about businesses needing more help with high and rising fuel costs.

The all-important question is what can be done with road fuel duties to reduce the pressure on businesses and individuals and to bring about a halt to spiralling price rises. Fuel duty accounts for more than 60% of the pump price of petrol and just less than 60% for diesel, with VAT on top of that—the highest percentage of duty in the European Union. While the anger and frustration of individuals at suffering such high duties are understandable, once again the major concerns that business has are also clear. How can we expect businesses to compete on a level playing field with European competitors when they face such high taxes and duties?

When the Government increased VAT to 20% in January, they contributed to a further hike in fuel costs. It was the wrong tax at the wrong time, hitting families and businesses hard, just when they were least able to absorb such an increase. I support the calls to look at reversing the VAT increase for road fuel. We know it is feasible to obtain approval at the EU level for such a cut, but the Government refuse to entertain the idea because it is politically inconvenient for them to do so.

In a debate on motoring fuel costs here in Westminster Hall back in June, the hon. Member for Harlow (Robert Halfon) called for a commitment to no more petrol tax rises in this Parliament. He urged the Government to consider abolishing even inflationary rises on fuel duty during the Parliament. Such calls have largely come about as a result of the work of Fair Fuel UK, which is a broadly representative body and is making a strong case for reducing fuel costs for both motorists and businesses.

How do such calls square with the Government’s position? In opposition, the Conservatives made much of plans to “slash fuel duty”, as the headlines screamed at the time, with their fair fuel stabiliser. The concept of fuel duty falling when fuel prices go up and rising when prices fall, seems, on the surface at least, like a winningly simple and effective idea. Many of my constituents certainly believed so and contacted me about supporting it. However, the Office for Budget Responsibility, the Institute for Fiscal Studies and others have raised problems with that approach. It remains to be seen whether the fair fuel stabiliser will deliver what businesses and individual motorists want.

[Mr Robin Walker (Worcester) (Con)]

When the Office for Budget Responsibility looked at the fair fuel stabiliser, it said that one of its fiscal problems was that the benefits to the Government of higher fuel prices were wiped out over time by the harm to the economy. Is that not evidence for intervention, and for the Government to set a lower fuel duty to stimulate the economy?

[Graeme Morrice]

The hon. Gentleman makes an interesting point. I am all for Government intervention in many walks of life, but I would have thought that reducing VAT would be a good start. My hon. Friend the Member for Central Ayrshire made the interesting point that putting VAT on top of the total cost of fuel is a tax on a tax, and the Treasury should look at that.

In summing up, I again thank my hon. Friend for this debate. It will not solve the problem, but I hope that it will at least provide further food for thought about what we can do to find a solution to this most thorny of problems in the longer term, and eventually to bring about a settlement that provides relief for hard-pressed families and businesses. I look forward to the Economic Secretary’s response.

Private Finance Initiative

Robin Walker Excerpts

Thursday 23rd June 2011 Westminster Hall

[Mr Robin Walker (Worcester) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Hereford and South Herefordshire (Jesse Norman) on securing this debate. Herford and Worcester have a long history of fruitful co-operation, and I hope that the debate will show that we can work together to deliver better value for our constituents and our country.

As we have heard, PFI has become a dirty word—almost a term of abuse—but it was not always so. Both Conservative and Labour Governments saw the benefits of working with private finance and, from the 1990s onwards, the opportunity to deliver better public service by using it. Rightly, many hon. Members have challenged the essence of the scheme, and I accept that it should be reviewed and that we should look at competition, as my hon. Friend the Member for South Norfolk (Mr Bacon) has suggested. However, Members should remember that some PFIs allowed valuable new public buildings to be delivered, which would not otherwise have been possible. That was often used to justify the scheme, even after some of the initial value-for-money problems became clear. That was certainly the case with the Worcestershire Royal hospital in my constituency, and I want to focus on matters close to home, in the same way that my hon. Friend the Member for Nuneaton (Mr Jones) did. Most of my comments today will be about that particular PFI.

Over time, it has become clear that value for money was not sufficiently protected, particularly in early PFIs, such as our hospital in Worcester. When the Labour Government came to power in 1997, they were determined to embark on a massive programme of public building, but with a commitment to remain within the spending plans of the previous Conservative Chancellor. The PFI provided a valuable get-out from that Catch-22 situation, because it allowed the Labour Government to borrow against the future—build today and pay tomorrow. That was not in itself a problem, as long as future costs were taken into account and rigorously controlled. Sadly, the political imperative overrode financial good sense, and projects were signed off without the rigorous checks that should have been made.

In the case of Worcestershire Royal hospital, I can state categorically that the decision to approve the structure of the PFI was political, that it was taken by a Labour Government and that it would not have been approved by a Conservative Government. The reason why I know that is peculiar. I happened to be working as a volunteer driver for my right hon. Friend the Member for Charnwood (Mr Dorrell), who was then Secretary of State for Health, during the 1997 general election campaign. We were both from Worcestershire originally, and we were both well aware of the clamour in the city for a new hospital, so the topic came up naturally during our travels around the country. I asked my right hon. Friend why he would not sign off the hospital that everyone wanted. He explained that, although it was absolutely right that the city should have a new hospital, the contract that had been put forward for it was too expensive and inflexible, and did not build in the extra capacity that the hospital would need over the next 30 years. He said that when the Conservatives were re-elected he would renegotiate that contract and ensure that we had a hospital to be proud of. Alas, that was not to be.

With the advent of a new Government impatient to get spending, the contract was signed off unchanged and the Worcestershire Royal hospital, a fine building in many ways, where a lot of fantastic work is done, lived up to the concerns of my right hon. Friend. The reply to my recent parliamentary question to the Department of Health in February on the costs of the PFI confirmed that over the life of its 30-year contract the Worcestershire Royal hospital will cost approximately 10 times the capital cost of the project—£852 million over 30 years, compared with its £82 million capital cost.

Hon. Members may point out that it is not reasonable to compare directly the capital figure of a project with the total cost of the PFI contract, because account must be taken of the cost of capital, the service elements, and the fact that a PFI project is maintained as new throughout its lifetime. However, it is reasonable to benchmark such figures against other, and especially more recent, hospital PFIs. In recent hospital PFIs, the lifetime costs have been more like four times the capital cost, which shows the vast gulf in value between early hospital deals, such as that at Worcestershire Royal hospital, and more recent PFIs.

Hon. Members do not have to accept my word for the poor value of that PFI. In 2006, Patricia Hewitt, who was then the right hon. Member for Leicester, West and Secretary of State for Health in the Labour Government, told the Select Committee on Health that the financing of the Worcestershire Royal had been “a disaster”, and that it had been much more expensive than other PFIs.

We have a problem not with cost alone but with capacity, and they are similar to those raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Nuneaton. The hospital in Worcester has to serve as both the acute hospital for the county and the community hospital for Worcester. It is now, and has been for some time operating at close to full capacity, and as more services have been centred there, it has become a headache for the management of our acute trust. With the opportunity to have more cancer services centred on the Royal, which my constituents warmly welcome and support, comes the challenge of deciding which services must go elsewhere in the county as a result of the capacity limits.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Hereford and South Herefordshire has pointed out so eloquently in this debate and others, one of the knock-on effects of poorly negotiated PFIs has been to raise the price of hospital parking, which is certainly true in Worcester. In fact, in the early life of the PFI, land that had originally been set aside for parking had to be sold to help the trust to meet the costs of paying for it. That has added to the difficulties of parking. The costs are of understandable concern to patients and visitors, and there is a knock-on effect of people parking in nearby residential estates to avoid those costs.

[Jesse Norman]

My hon. Friend’s powerful speech suggests that his hospital, the total cost of which is 10 times its capital cost versus an average of four times, leaves six times £80 million, or just under £500 million of excess cost, in that contract. Is that an appropriate calculation?

[Mr Walker]

That is an appropriate point to raise, and a strong argument for the sort of rebate that my hon. Friend has been advocating.

It is regrettable for all those who are affected by high charges for parking or by cars cluttering their streets as a result that the previous Government did not take more time to negotiate, to think more about the long-term consequences of their hurried decisions and to get a better deal for taxpayers before signing off that PFI.

However, we are here not simply to point the finger of blame but to deliver solutions. I believe that there are solutions to these problems, which is why I have passionately supported my hon. Friend’s campaign for a significant PFI rebate. We need not let past mistakes for ever damn the idea of the PFI, but we should learn from them and ensure that we deliver better value for money, better planning and a stronger position for taxpayers in future.

I support my hon. Friend’s contention that a 0.5% rebate nationally would deliver enormous benefits for taxpayers and, in the case of the Worcestershire Royal hospital, it would deliver millions of pounds that are desperately needed in our local health economy. I also support the urgent measures that our Government are already taking to bring PFI companies to the table and to ensure that better value is delivered for taxpayers. I am delighted for that reason that the Worcestershire Royal hospital is one of those being reviewed by McKinsey, and I urge it to examine closely the details of the current agreements and to search for areas where value can be unlocked. In Worcestershire, as elsewhere, many of us believe that the long-term costs of the PFI are placing serious strain on the finances of our acute trust. Consequentially, they are a significant barrier to the vital short-term goal of achieving foundation trust status, not to mention the essential long-term aim of delivering the best possible care for everyone in Worcestershire, free at the point of need.

There is good news on that front, which shows that the light that my hon. Friend has shone on the PFI, and the determination of this coalition Government to deliver value for money, are already bearing fruit. I understand that the Worcestershire Acute NHS Trust is already finding significant savings that can be delivered from the soft services parts of their contract. As part of the trust’s strategy to deliver greater efficiency from its PFI provider, commercial discussions are currently under way with ISS to benchmark the provision of soft services every five years. ISS provides services such as cleaning, catering, portering, security and laundry to the Worcestershire Royal hospital site, and it has indicated that it is prepared to work with the trust to deliver savings over the next five years in line with national efficiency assumptions of 4% a year. That would be delivered while offering a guarantee that there will be no impact on quality. I understand that the trust’s board is due to consider a formal offer within the next month, and I welcome that.

The trust is also due to commence negotiations with Siemens on the managed medical equipment deal, which is due to have a benchmarking review in 2012, in line with its 10-year anniversary. Those negotiations are entirely welcome and show that some private companies are already engaged in seeing how better value for money can be achieved for taxpayers. However, I am worried that, as yet, there has been no indication of similar negotiations with the main PFI contractor, Catalyst, a special-purpose vehicle. I take this opportunity to urge it to come to the table and, recognising the exceptionally good deal that it has had at the Worcestershire Royal hospital, to begin talking about how some of the value from that deal could be rebated to taxpayers and the local NHS.

The main shareholders in Catalyst when it was set up were Bovis Lend Lease and the British Linen bank. The latter, via HBOS and the ill-conceived merger that the previous Government forced through, has become part of the Lloyds banking group, in which UK taxpayers now have a significant stake. Surely such banks, publicly bailed out as they have been, should be doing everything in their power to ensure that they are giving good value to the public and the NHS? That should be the case whether or not they hope to win more business from the Government, but I have recently discovered that that same consortium has hopes of winning the contract to deliver a new radiotherapy unit for the Worcestershire Royal hospital.

That radiotherapy unit will be a vital addition to the suite of services that Worcester is able to offer to cancer patients, and I have been campaigning for that for many years. I welcomed the decision of our trust first to approve it and then to locate it in Worcester at the heart of our county. I have been asked whether I am worried that Catalyst is in the running to deliver it. I do not see it as a matter for concern so much as a golden opportunity. I hope that Catalyst can show in its bid for the radiotherapy unit that it is determined to offer taxpayers value for money and to share the benefits of the original PFI contract for the Worcestershire Royal hospital. It must have many advantages in terms of cost and synergies with its existing contracts, so I am sure that it will be as determined as I am that those advantages are shared fairly with taxpayers. I will be only too happy to support my acute trust in its negotiations with Catalyst to make sure the bid offers the excellent value for money that it should.

In particular, I am hopeful that the benefits of this project will be not only financial but will provide the opportunity to address the long-term parking problems at the hospital. I urge it to consider the need for a multi-storey car park at the Worcestershire Royal, and the golden opportunity to deliver that alongside the provision of a new radiotherapy unit. Indeed, more broadly, the Government should recognise that, as we strive to deliver value for money in all our public services, we must take a more aggressive approach in our purchasing and commissioning, negotiating hard to ensure that taxpayers receive good value. I was happy to hear of the hundreds of millions already saved by the Cabinet Office through negotiation with major suppliers, and I hope that the Minister can assure us that that approach will in future be taken to the PFI.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Hereford and South Herefordshire again on his campaign and exhort the Minister to take on board the many excellent points that have been made in this debate. Not only do we have a responsibility not to repeat the mistakes of the past but we have an opportunity to put things right for the future.