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Finance Bill

It is utterly unsustainable for people in my hon. Friend's constituency and in other remote rural areas throughout the UK. We cannot have parts of the UK paying 33 per cent.—a third—more for a litre of diesel or petrol, which is quite extraordinary. The impact in some remote rural areas, where it happens to be particularly cold among other things, is even worse; the hon. Member for Dumfries and Galloway (Mr. Brown) referred earlier to heating fuel—another issue that the Government must look into. Thus, with fuel inflation nearly 20 per cent., food inflation more than 6 per cent. and filling up the tank costing an absolute fortune, what was the social provision in the Budget, feeding through to the Finance Bill? For the first time, we saw child benefit for the first child rise by only 70p and the second child by 45p. I know that it is planned for it to rise to £20 in future years, but when the Minister sums up, I would be grateful if she would explain where the Government intend it to go. Those annual rises—a tin of juice or a packet of crisps for the second child—are really very low. Likewise, the extra £50 winter fuel allowance is welcome, but I am already talking to pensioners who are saying that that amount has been gobbled up already. I hope that at some point, the Government could commit either to making the allowance permanent, which it is not at the moment, or, better still, to rolling up lots of these allowances and delivering a proper living citizen's pension. I will finish where many of us started—with the abolition of the 10p starting rate. We know that it will be to the detriment of about 500,000 Scottish households in which people earn very little. We know that it is the wrong thing to do, particularly in the light of rising inflation for the necessities of life.