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Finance Bill

I am grateful for that intervention, because for many years—since before the Government introduced the policy—my party has been an exponent of the merits of differentials in vehicle excise duty. We want to try to encourage, rather than compel, behavioural change through price mechanisms. In 2001, the Government introduced a timid, modest form of the policy for which the Liberal Democrats have long argued. Over a number of years, the Government have slowly sought to expand the number of bands, and to make the policy more radical. Our argument is that the policy should be more adventurous still, that the rewards for driving low-emission cars ought to be greater, and also that the penalties for driving high-emission cars ought to be greater, with one or two exemptions that we touched on in discussion on the previous group of amendments. The hon. Member for Fareham (Mr. Hoban) asked whether the differentials in vehicle excise duty were about raising money or changing behaviour. We argue that they are about both. It is perfectly possible for both those effects to be produced simultaneously. Taxation on cigarettes, for example, is designed to try to dissuade people from smoking, but it also raises substantial amounts of revenue for the Treasury. I agree with the Conservative party spokesman, and the Conservative party more generally, that environmental taxes are discredited if they are used solely as a revenue-raising measure. Certainly, my party would like money raised through environmental taxation to be used to offset other types of taxes, including taxes on income, particularly the income of those on low salaries, who most need assistance at a time of rising prices. The Conservative party is playing a risky political game. Its leader cycles to work at the House of Commons—[Interruption.] I will ignore the interjections about how his clothing gets here. He cycles here, and he and others create the impression that the Conservative party is extremely sympathetic to wind farms and low-emission vehicles, yet that is done with a nod and a wink. For example, in The Daily Telegraph's lead story a few weeks ago, people who might be inclined to vote for the Conservative party were encouraged to believe that the party is not sympathetic to vehicle excise duty differentials. Indeed, in Treasury questions last Thursday, a Conservative Front-Bench spokesman, the hon. Member for Putney (Justine Greening), asked:"““Will the Minister add the band A to J losers to the 10p compensation package review?””—[Official Report, 24 April 2008; Vol. 474, c. 1449.]" She sought, slightly bizarrely, to create some sort of parallel between people who drive high-emission vehicles and some of the poorest people in the country who are losing out as a result of the doubling of the 10p rate. That is not an accurate parallel. The Conservative party is in danger of trying both to persuade people that they are victims of a malicious environmental policy put in place by the Government, and to outflank the Government with their green credentials. The Conservative party says ““Vote blue, go green””, but what it is effectively saying is ““We'll talk green; vote blue.””