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Finance Bill

I was going to discuss the issue that the hon. Gentleman raises. I just wanted to make the point that it is not obvious that trying to manipulate the duty in different ways would have a predictable read-through to the price at the pump. There is no guarantee that it would, without our setting an actual price for petrol. We have never done that in the UK and it may well not be legal. The amendment assumes that predictability. Nobody on the opposition Benches has questioned that, but there are big question marks around it. It is also not necessarily the case that those who are least able to afford to pay petrol prices pay the highest in all cases, because great variation in price exists across the country and sometimes from one petrol station to another. The difference in prices on the various websites demonstrates that variation. It is greater in the highlands and islands than anywhere else, but there is a lot of variation and there is no obvious logic to the prices that one pays at the pump, despite the fact that fuel duty is the same across the country. That needs to be acknowledged and it might point to the fact that trying to manipulate the fuel duty is not the answer.