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Fuel Duty

That is very helpful. I thank the hon. Gentleman for that clarification and I acknowledge his point. The motion does not deal with differential rates; in fact, I think it would make that problem rather more complicated. None the less, I take his point and I am sure that it has been noted. Let me move on to a second point in the Conservatives' motion, which accuses the Government of dithering. They obviously like that work, because we keep hearing it—I know that it rhymes with ““wuthering””, which makes quite a good joke. However, if I were trying to develop a serious critique of Government tax policy, I am not sure that ““dithering”” is the word that I would use. After all, the main criticism is not that the Government have dithered, but that they keep rushing in with not very well thought out proposals—capital gains tax, non-dom tax and inheritance tax come to mind. ““Dithering”” is perhaps not the proper criticism. Perhaps, however, I could make a case for dithering. There is an argument for dithering in a case such as this. We do not know what the oil price will be in the autumn, and we have no idea what the revenue position will be. It has been rather embarrassingly exposed that the Government have not even made any preliminary estimates of that. Surely it would be sensible to wait until the autumn before rushing into a decision on fuel duty—