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Finance Bill

The hon. Gentleman is right and I thank him for that intervention. The paper that my hon. Friend the Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross has written goes into such charging in detail and makes it clear that there must be a detailed audit trail to make sure that the discount is passed on to the motorist at the pump. As for the mainland, attempts to commit fraud there would be similarly impractical. The important point about our scheme is that the fuel discount would be set at such a level to reduce the extra costs that motorists are paying at the pump compared with urban areas, but it would not eliminate them entirely. Therefore, the price of fuel would still be slightly higher in remote parts of the mainland than in urban areas but the current obscenely large differentials would cease to exist. As a result, there would be no point in a motorist travelling a long distance—from Glasgow up into the highlands, for instance—to buy fuel, because it would still cost them more in the highlands than in Glasgow. However, those travelling to remote areas would benefit in any case, and tourists would be more likely to return rather than being put off from doing so by the current high fuel prices. In the amendment, proposed new subsection (5)(g) provides for the Treasury, after it has agreed to the scheme, to devolve it and permit the Scottish Government, Welsh Assembly Government and Northern Ireland Executive to operate it in their own jurisdictions. This workable scheme tackles a genuine and serious problem—remote rural areas suffer from high fuel prices, and have no public transport alternatives. It is clearly ridiculous and unfair that people in those areas pay more tax on their fuel than people in urban areas. The amendment would right an obvious wrong, and I urge the House to support it.