Justine Greening MP, Shadow Treasury minister, led unsuccessful Tory efforts to scrap Labour's hike in Vehicle Excise Duty. Her contributions to yesterday's Commons debate - summarised below - will soon be appearing in campaign literature across Britain...
The scale of the tax increase: There is no doubt that the proposed increase in vehicle excise duty will lead to a massive tax rise. The Treasury has admitted that its take from graduated VED will increase by more than 100 per cent. over the next few years. Figures released by the Treasury to me reveal that the take from graduated VED will increase from £1.9 billion in 2006 to £4.4 billion in 2010. I repeat: green taxes have to be offset by decreases in taxes elsewhere, precisely to ensure that families are not overburdened by tax at this time of economic hardship.
This is not a green tax: "I use the term “green taxes” loosely when describing the vehicle excise duty changes announced by the Government. One would hope that a tax increase of several billions of pounds would lead to some impressive vehicle emissions savings, but that is not the case. The argument that the changes will help the environment is simply not true. The Government have admitted that minimal emissions savings will result from the changes to vehicle excise duty rates. According to the figure that I have been given by Ministers, they expect annual emissions from motor vehicles to reduce by 160,000 tonnes a year by 2020. That is a fraction of 1 per cent. of total transport CO2 emissions, which were 120 million tonnes back in 2006, just one year."
This retrospective tax will be more impactful than the 10p fiasco: "The result of this change will be more dramatic for taxpayers than the result of the 10p tax rate fiasco. About 1.2 million drivers will experience a tax rise of either £220 or £245, which they could not possibly have foreseen when they bought their cars up to seven years ago. A further 1.1 million will see retrospective increases of up to £100, and possibly more, between 2008 and 2010. That will mean that twice as many people will be worse off by twice as much money as we were talking about yesterday in relation to the 10p tax rate fiasco."
Low income families will be hurt most: "Those who will be affected by the proposals are people with older cars, people with family cars and people on low incomes who simply cannot afford to upgrade to a less polluting car. What kind of policy creates a situation in which the owner of a new Porsche will face a smaller tax increase than a family with an older family car? It is clear that we need to revisit this decision... From statements made by Ministers, and from the minuscule amount of data that I have received in answer to parliamentary questions, I understand that about 1.3 million people earning less than £15,000 a year will be hit by above-inflation increases in vehicle excise duty. Some of them will face rises of £245 a year. That is a week’s take-home pay that the Government are going to take out of their pockets through this proposal. We believe that up to 750,000 of them will face increases that are triple the rate of inflation. It is completely unacceptable that these changes to vehicle excise duty should have a greater impact on those on the lowest incomes."
A tax that can't be avoided: "People up and down the country are, frankly, furious about being confronted with a tax rise that they have no way of avoiding. They will face it not just for one year; they will be locked into it for several years. As my right hon. Friend [John Redwood] said, many people will be unable to afford to buy a new car because the value of their current car will have plummeted as a result of these tax changes."
