Extra Traffic to be Set Against Tax
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FROM OUR PARLIAMENTARY CORRESPONDENT
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HEN Mr. H. Brooke, Financial Secretary to the Treasury, last week moved the Customs Resolution imposing the extra duty of Is. a gallon on oil, and revealed the permission to coach and bus operators to make "strictly limited and temporary" increases in fares without going through the usual procedure, he added:
"it would certainly be reasonable to expect that the operators, in deciding by how much they ought to increase their charges, will take fully into account any operating factors resulting from the present situation which tell in 'the opposite direction."
This was a reference to the hopes of the Government that, as more people will be using buses because of petrol rationing, operators should earn extra revenue.
Mr. Gordon-Walker. for the Opposition, made the point that if the U.S.A. did not agree to the waiver of the interest on the dollar loan, the Chancellor would have to consider further and "more considerable" fiscal changes.
He undertook on behalf of the Labour Party to do everything that could be done to save the £. but he c14 thought that the new oil tax was bound to be inflationary. The very changes to be made to let bus companies put up their fares showed how inflationary it wa S.
Mr. Walter Elliot (C., Kelvingrove) appealed for taxation on home-produced fuel not to be increased. Whilst' limiting the consumption of fuel, the new tax ought also to have the effect of developing home sources [it has been stated that oil prospecting is being intensified in Britain].
Mr. Ellis Smith (Lab., Stoke-onTrent S.), said that since the war industry had responded to appeal after appeal. Local transport committees had run great risks and municipal transport undertakings had run into loses in making their contribution towards the avoidance of inflation, Now they were faced with this discouraging increase in duty.
Mr. David Jones (Lab.. Hartlepools) said that every public transport authority in the country would laugh at the estimate of Id. on a 3d. fare, which had been estimated by the Chancellor as the extra cost of his tax.
The resolution was approved.