Campaign for Cheaper Petrol Continues...

With economic growth running at a sluggish 0.2%, we urgently need a cut in fuel taxes. As I told The Sun this morning, petrol and diesel are just too expensive. This is especially true at a time when oil companies like BP are raking in massive profits.

The astronomical cost is hurting families and businesses all across the UK. This is depressing the economy, and with difficult growth figures and the Eurozone crisis, we need all the help we can get.

George Osborne took a bold and decisive step earlier this year, to abandon Labour's rip-off fuel escalator and to cut petrol duty by 1p. The Chancellor has now even hinted that he may look at tax cuts in the autumn. I am strongly urging him to cut fuel duty.

As I set out recently on this blog, the high petrol taxes aren't just bad for motorists. They're bad for the Treasury too. That's why I have written to the Prime Minister, pushed a car up Whitehall in protest, and raised this numerous times in Parliament.

My letter to David Cameron asked him to delay or abolish completely the planned 4p petrol tax hike, which will hit motorists on New Year's Day, January 1st 2012.

We urgently need lower petrol taxes, to bring jobs back to Harlow, and to get our economy moving again.

p.s. sign our petition against high petrol taxes at www.fairfueluk.com by Robert Halfon - www.roberthalfon.blogspot.com

Never again

Last August, I wrote THIS blog about the release of the Lockerbie Bomber. On Tuesday in the Commons, following revelations in the newspapers, I raised this issue with an intervention during Justice Questions and through a Parliamentary Motion. I was also interviewed in BBC News 24.

My main point was that never again should the Government ever release a mass murderer, convicted by the British courts, on dubious grounds of ill-health and for murky commercial reasons, to be sent back and lauded by a Dictatorship.

It now has emerged that the last Labour Government - having said in September 2007 that Mr Al Megrahi, would be excluded on any prisoner release - subsequently ended this 'exclusion' by December 2007. By unhappy coincidence, BP signed a commercial agreement with Libya in January 2008. If this were not bad enough, Mr Al Megrahi has 'outlived' expectations, which was the main reason given for his release on grounds of 'compassion' last year.

My Commons Motion is HERE.

P.S. This article from last September is worth reading.

P.P.S. The Financial Times has an article about BP deep water drilling off the Libyan Coast within weeks.

by Robert Halfon - www.roberthalfon.blogspot.com