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Fuel Duty (Rural Areas)

I will not give way because I want to finish. To avoid those problems, it would be necessary to operate a system whereby retailers charged a lower rate, and were then refunded by HMRC on part of the duty. However, that would impose significant additional administrative costs, not only on HMRC, but on fuel sellers in the highlands and islands. That brings me to my final point about the uncertainty of the impact on consumers of any reduced fuel duty rate. For small forecourts with stretched margins, there is a real risk that the administrative cost associated with a reduced duty rate could outweigh the benefits of the rate. In the light of that, there would be no guarantee that the benefits of any fuel duty reduction would be passed on to consumers, rather than simply being absorbed into fuel sellers' margins. It has been suggested that one way out of the problem would be for the Government to define the agreed margin that individual fuel retailers could employ each year, but that would clearly constitute a major intervention by the Government into the fuels market and would be contrary to the Government's general policy of allowing free markets to determine prices. It is also difficult to understand why fuel sellers would choose to enter into such agreements with the Government over their margins. I recognise the difficulties facing people who live in remote areas, and are dependent on their cars, but the proposed fuel duty reduction would be contrary to the principles of the UK tax system and, more importantly, would be almost impossible to implement in practice. There would be almost no guarantee—