Robbie Moore

The right to roll out a clean air zone was given to local authorities, enabling them to make that decision, but some local authorities have refused to do so. The Mayor of Greater Manchester, Andy Burnham, decided not to roll out a clean air zone—that is an example of a Labour administration at a local level making the right decision on this issue. Labour-run Bradford council, however, decided to impose an additional tax on hard-working motorists across the Bradford district. As a result, places in my constituency such as East Morton face increased traffic congestion, road usage and speeding in the areas outside the clean air zone, where motorists try to take different roads to avoid any additional charge. Rural communities will also be hard hit, as has been rightly pointed out by my hon. Friend the Member for Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk (John Lamont). Many of those businesses are in our farming community, which has already been hit by additional cash-flow implications. One point that has not been raised in this debate so far is the increase in red diesel prices, which have spiked by 60% in the last month alone, as supplies remain tight. From the research I have done, red diesel has increased up to an average of 109p a litre in March, up from 67p a litre in February. Farming businesses are reporting being quoted a variety of prices in the past month, ranging from 100p a litre to 135p a litre. That is a significant increase from the 67p a litre we saw just last month. Several farmers are rightly querying why red diesel prices appear to have increased much more rapidly than road diesel and petrol prices. What meetings is the Minister having with Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Ministers specifically on red diesel, which is having an impact right now on the cash flow of many of our hard-working farmers? That is in addition to delinked payments dramatically dropping, the chop and change over the sustainable farming incentive, and the uncertainty that this Government are creating for many of those working within our farming community, and that is on top of fertiliser prices going up. The Prime Minister said earlier this week that he will always support working people, but what does that say to those hard-working people across the country and across Keighley and Ilkley, such as Lesley O’Brien, who I mentioned earlier? Businesses and employers face bigger and bigger hurdles the longer this Labour Government are in power. Three consecutive rises in fuel duty is an insult to hard-working people across this country. The Prime Minister and this Government need to get a grip, back our hard-working businesses and show some empathy to those concerns consistently being raised by Opposition Members. It is disappointing, although perhaps not surprising, that we have not heard one Labour Back Bencher contribution in an incredibly important debate on fuel duty.