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Finance Bill

There has been slight confusion in the debate. Earlier, Members were discussing forecasts of the oil price. The Government publish an assumption about the oil price in the Budget and in the pre-Budget report. In the Budget, it was $40.6 a barrel. That assumption is based on the average of the independent forecasts—it is not our forecast. We publish it, because we need an assumption for the purposes of public finance planning. The hon. Gentleman must wait until the pre-Budget report. He has been in the House long enough to know that we make our revenue forecasts twice a year in the Budget and in the pre-Budget report. In claiming that the new clause will bring benefits for business, the hon. Member for Dundee, East may have overlooked the fact that many businesses, particularly the 1.8 million VAT-registered businesses, can reclaim the VAT incurred when they buy fuel for business journeys. The level of VAT that they pay at the pumps has little or no effect on their overall balance sheet. For those reasons, we believe that the best way of dealing with high oil prices is to work with oil-producing countries and through the G8 Finance Ministers to stabilise the volatility in the oil market and to improve its functioning rather than simply focus on short-term changes to levels of duty by introducing a road fuel regulator, as proposed in the new clause. I hope that the hon. Gentleman accepts that we have had a useful debate and, on that basis, does not believe that he has to press his new clause to a vote. If he does so, however, I will urge my hon. Friends to resist it.