Mr Richard Holden

I am sorry, but I need to make a little more progress, but I will happily come back to my hon. Friend later. However we travel, Labour is after us. Is it a boat? Is it a train? Is it a plane? No, it is Labour’s taxman coming for us. And where will this money be spent—all the extra money from Labour’s taxes on the public? It will not be spent on hard-working families or to create jobs and boost opportunities; it will be frittered away on more welfare, because this Prime Minister and this Government Front Bench are too weak to stand up to their own Back Benchers and ensure that welfare is kept under control. They are picking the pockets of hard-working people to pay for those who choose not to work. When it comes to paying at the pump, Rachel Reeves has been happy to try to lay the blame at the feet of the petrol stations, but what makes up most of the cost of a litre of petrol? Her fuel duty is by far the biggest chunk. In fact, taxes make up 55% of the cost of fuel, and it is going up under Labour. When the Energy Secretary was presented with these sickening statistics, he claimed: “That’s why we’ve frozen fuel duty.” Why on earth do the Government not do what we did by freezing it all the way through? They could do it today, but they are not going to do it because they are too afraid of their own Back Benchers when it comes to welfare. I am surprised that Members are aligning themselves with the spluttering spinelessness of Mr Miliband—I am sorry; I mean the right hon. Member for Doncaster North. We know that for her and Ed, when the facts change, when countries all around the world change, Labour just digs in.