Sammy Wilson MP MLA

“Wilson in opposition to increased Vehicle excise duty”

Sammy Wilson MP lent his support to an opposition motion in the House of Commons voicing concern at the Government’s proposals to increase Vehicle Excise duty. Because of the new proposals 3.7m people will lose £90 a year and overall more than 1 million families will see their car tax double. Owners of high polluting cars, which are often old or large cars, will have to pay £440 in tax.

Speaking during the debate in the House of Commons on Wednesday, Mr Wilson said that the increases will not serve to change people’s behaviour, but it is instead just another attempt to raise revenue in the guise of a green tax. The MP went on to say that even if attitudes and behaviour did change and people had the money to buy newer less polluting cars, the effects on reducing CO2 emissions would be minimal.

In the Commons, Mr Wilson said:

“I shall support the motion tonight for two reasons. First, the Minister has said that this is a green tax designed to change behaviour, yet if we look at how it was introduced, we see that it happened without any warning. Furthermore, the Chancellor suggested that the increase in VED would affect hardly anyone, that the majority of people would be unaffected and that there would be nothing to worry about. We now know, of course, that more than 16 million motorists will be affected by the year 2010.

If the Government are to introduce measures to change people's behaviour, surely the first thing that they should do is spell out those measures, and their consequences. They should then seek to persuade people to do something different. They should not do that by stealth. We were told that these were taxes to change behaviour—but the way in which they were introduced makes it clear that, rather than being behaviour-changing taxes, they were simply a cynical attempt to exploit the hysteria about the role of CO2 emissions in climate change.

Secondly, the Minister told us that even when these taxes have been made, the impact on CO2 emissions will be very little—less than a fraction of 1 per cent. That is based on the assumption that people will sell their CO2-emitting cars and opt for cars that emit less. That assumption, of course, as hon. Members have pointed out, is based on a false premise—that many of those who own those cars have the ability to sell them and buy a different car. It is quite clear from what hon. Members have said in the debate that many of the people involved are from low-income families and have bought old cars because those are all that they can afford, and large cars because they have families.

Those people buy large cars because they require them for their work or their families, so they will not be able to change their behaviour in that way even if they wanted to, and even if they had the economic incentive to do so.

When we look into the environmental credentials of this tax, it becomes quite clear that it is not about changing behaviour or dealing with climate change; it is about raising revenue. If people believe in high taxation, that is fine, but surely that is not true of regressive taxation that hits the poor—poor or disabled families, poor families living in rural areas, poor families with low incomes who can only afford old cars. For those two reasons—because the tax is regressive and because it does not and will not achieve what it is designed to achieve—I will support the Opposition motion tonight.”

ENDS

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