17:02 Jesse Norman (Conservative)

The Bill will also encourage the uptake of zero-emission vehicles by removing them from the vehicle excise duty expensive car supplement, which will mean that employers and employees pay no tax on zero-emission company cars in 2020-21. The United Kingdom has led the world in introducing legally binding carbon emissions reduction targets; these measures underline once again how serious the Government are about meeting those targets.

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17:18 Anneliese Dodds (Labour)

Finally, of course, we will need to deal with the considerable burden created by the costs necessarily incurred in fighting coronavirus. Subsequent Finance Bills will need to be very different from this one, and I want to use the time I have available to spell out why. We will need new approaches to taxation generally, the social contract with business, funding public services, the climate crisis and tax reliefs. I will deal with each area briefly in turn.

An additional area where action is needed is tackling the climate crisis. Survey evidence, albeit tentative at this stage, suggests a renewed appetite from the public to grasp the challenges posed by the need to decarbonise. The Bill makes small moves in the right direction. It incrementally increases vehicle excise duty, using emissions as a benchmark—the Chief Secretary to the Treasury mentioned that—and it introduces the world- wide harmonised light-duty vehicles test procedure, a UN-established vehicle testing procedure, in an attempt to prevent the gaming of emissions standards by vehicle manufacturers. We encourage the Government to adopt a steady replacement of all testing procedures within that framework. More broadly, we need a far stronger shift in taxation to disincentivise carbon production. The previous Finance Bill continued implicitly to support fossil fuels in a number of areas, and this one only sets the scene for some elements of the promised new plastics tax and the new emissions controls that will be necessary. Given that we have declared a national climate emergency in this very House, we need far stronger action in subsequent Finance Bills.

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17:52 Rushanara Ali (Labour)

This Finance Bill does little to strengthen our economy or make us more resilient. Even before the covid crisis, it was inadequate. It does not deal with the challenges of climate change and the climate emergency, and it does not go far enough to reverse the challenges posed by the deep-seated inequalities in health, education and other spheres over the last decade.

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18:13 Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op) [V]

One way to do that would be to learn from the Americans—from the Kennedys and the peace corps—and give young people at 18, at 21 or at any stage of their lives the chance to go and serve the community abroad or at home. I would like us to take a bit of that, and perhaps a bit of the green apprenticeship in Germany, and create a new green national service. It would give every young person in our country an opportunity—at the age of 16, 18, 21 or whenever they chose—to spend a year working on climate change and the environment. We need the money to do that, and I think a windfall profit tax would be the way.

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18:54 Ed Davey (Liberal Democrat)

Alongside greater fairness, we must move our economy much faster towards net zero so that we address the climate emergency in the recovery. I am pleased that the Government are talking about this, but we need urgently to debate specific policy proposals to make sure that the new economy that we must build is genuinely low carbon. We are seeing how fast the Government can move in a crisis; well, there is a climate crisis and we need to move just as fast to tackle that, too.

When it comes to planning the recovery, may I ask Treasury Ministers to consider three key issues? The first is how the furlough scheme is wound down to make sure that we protect jobs. We must prevent staff who are furloughed today from becoming staff who are laid off tomorrow. The second is that in the recovery we must achieve a historic and dramatic rise in both private and public investment in green technology and climate-friendly infrastructure. After solving the current international crisis, let us solve the next global crisis—the climate crisis—that we all know is facing us.

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21:19 John Glen (Conservative)

This Bill helps in the Government’s efforts to move towards a greener and more sustainable economy, as mentioned by the right hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Sir Edward Davey), and confirms that the CO 2 emissions figures for vehicle excise duty will be based on the worldwide harmonised light vehicle test procedure for all new registered cars from 1 April 2020. In addition, zero-emission cars will no longer be subjected to the VED expensive car supplement. These measures will help to ensure that, as our economy develops and grows, it does not jeopardise our environment. I know that many of these measures will attract widespread support across the House. I thank Opposition Members for the constructive and collegiate approach that they have taken over the past few weeks. In that spirit, let me address some of the valuable points raised further in today’s debate.

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