Dave Thompson MSP

FOLLOWING the belated announcement of a small reduction in fuel prices for a tiny proportion of the country's rural population, Highlands and Islands MSP Dave Thompson has urged further action to ease the pain for the majority of rural motorists in Scotland.

Mr Thompson said he was underwhelmed by the reannouncement of the measure by Inverness MP Danny Alexander, the chief secretary to the Treasury, at the Lib Dems' Scottish conference last week and called for George Osborne, the Westminster Chancellor from the Conservative end of the Lib/Con coalition, to forego the planned rise in Duty for fuel in his forthcoming budget.

"For years, Highlanders have had to listen to Danny Alexander spout off about the need for fair fuel pricing in this part of the country and it may have been the factor that persuaded some to trust him and give him their vote.

"But in this, as with so many other things Mr Alexander swore he would take up on behalf of his constituents, the final result has been a complete letdown.

"The measure announced at the Lib Dem conference was pathetically inadequate as far as mainland Highlanders, struggling with some of Europe's most expensive prices at the pumps, are concerned. Many of those who trusted Danny Alexander to keep his word and use his position as Chief Secretary to the Treasury to help them will now be feeling betrayed at the inadequate step he has announced.

Last week Mr Thompson used his speech (copied below) during a Scottish Parliament debate on fuel prices to highlight the contradiction between Lib Dem calls for meaningful reductions in fuel duty with the inadequate measure offered now that  they are in office at Westminster.

Note:

Transcript of Dave Thompson's speech during SP debate on fuel pricing:

Dave Thompson (Highlands and Islands) (SNP): Over the years, many studies have been carried out on the supply and price of fuel in the Highlands and Islands, some of which I was involved in as director of protective services for Highland Council. The Highlands and Islands action group on hydrocarbon fuel prices also did some good work in pressing the Office of Fair Trading to investigate the matter, but no evidence was found of profiteering by retailers. That is not where the problem lies.

The main problem is with the duty and VAT that is levied by Government. On a litre of fuel, the duty and VAT account for more than 60 per cent of the cost, with the retailer getting less than 4 per cent. It is Government that must take action, which is what this debate is about.

Of course, the debate would be totally unnecessary if the Lib Dems in Westminster had kept their promises to reduce fuel prices. Many suspected that their oft-repeated claims that they would champion lower fuel prices for the Highlands and Islands would evaporate if they ever got into power. How right they were.

That is why, back in May last year, I lodged a motion that called on Danny Alexander, the new Secretary of State for Scotland—and now Chief Secretary to the Treasury—to use his position to deliver on his party’s repeated calls for a meaningful reduction in fuel taxation. However, almost a year after his election, he is now saying that the fuel stabiliser is

“a complicated idea and it’s difficult to see precisely how we achieve it”,
and he has come out with the highly technical monetary sentence:
“We can’t sacrifice income willy nilly.”
Is a fuel stabiliser too complicated? The FSB does not think so. It says that the stabiliser is a commonsense and relatively simple measure to introduce. It explains that the concept is straightforward: when oil prices rise, the stabiliser allows Government to reduce duty to a lower limit, and when oil prices fall, the Government can raise duty to a higher limit.

Liam McArthur: Mr Thompson has clearly set out the broad principle, which a number of members have enunciated in this debate. Would he care to have a stab at where he would pitch the base rate for fuel in the stabiliser that he would like to see?

Dave Thompson: I am amazed that Liam McArthur thinks that the great brains in London and Westminster will not be able to work that out for themselves.

The great thing about the stabiliser is that it would ensure that the cost of fuel stayed relatively stable so that businesses and householders could budget with some degree of certainty. That is what the Lib Dems promised, but when they got a chance to vote for it at Westminster last month, they joined the Tories to oppose it, while Labour was nowhere to be seen.

Of course, a stabiliser would not help with the even higher prices in rural and remote areas. Today, for instance, a litre of diesel is 131.9p in Inverness, 137.9p in Aviemore, 142.9p in Kyle of Lochalsh and a whopping 147.5p in Armadale on Skye.

The Liberals made great play in opposition of their campaign to reduce fuel prices in remote and rural areas, but where has that promise got to? It seems to have been watered down to cover only the Hebrides, Orkney and Shetland, with no mention of the remote and rural mainland. Danny Alexander’s rural constituents in Badenoch and Strathspey and around Loch Ness will not be too happy about that, and neither will consumers in places such as Wester Ross and Lochaber.

Meanwhile, Highlanders can see the lights of the rigs in Europe’s largest oil field from their kitchen windows, yet they still face Europe’s highest fuel prices at the pump. The Highlands and Islands is an area in which average wages are well below the Scottish average and living costs are well above it; in which people have to travel much greater distances on poorer roads; and in which the Lib Dems have won election after election by promising to do something about high fuel costs. Now is the time for them to deliver, and I hope that they will.

The Road Haulage Association has been very active in the campaign—

Jim Hume: Will the member take an intervention?

Dave Thompson: Maybe in a minute.
The RHA has been active in the campaign for fair fuel prices. Haulage firms in the Highlands and Islands are particularly badly hit by high fuel prices. Only today, Duncan Boyd, a director of the Lochaber firm Boyd Brothers timber and haulage of Corpach, told me:

“All hauliers are seriously struggling with fuel prices this high. They are lucky if they are able to break even and some have already fallen by the wayside or had to put some of their drivers on the dole. You have to put money out for fuel and you can’t go running to your customers every time it goes up or you will lose business.”

The firm also ships cargo by sea, and Duncan Boyd told me that that part of his business is affected in exactly the same way by high fuel prices and that the Government—the UK Government—needs to give industry a break.

I give way to Jim Hume.

The Presiding Officer: This should be very quick, because the member is in his last minute.

Jim Hume: I was not asking to get in, but thank you very much.
Dave Thompson has gone on about people breaking their promises and so on. When will the SNP reverse the alternative fuel situation? It promised that 100 per cent of public vehicles would be using alternative fuel—

Stewart Stevenson: By 2020.

Jim Hume: Correct. In the past few years, we have had half the alternative-fuel vehicles that we had four years ago. We are going the wrong way.

The Presiding Officer: Dave Thompson, you have 15 seconds left.

Dave Thompson: Mr Hume’s smokescreen will not work. The public out there know what the Liberal Democrats promised in the past. The people of the Highlands and Islands have read their election leaflets year after year. The Lib Dems will not get away with it.

The evidence is overwhelming. The Highlands and Islands—

The Presiding Officer: I am sorry, Mr Thompson, but you are out of time. I must move on—

Dave Thompson: The answer is obvious—

The Presiding Officer: Mr Thompson!