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Brown attacked over road tax plan | |
(31 minutes later) | |
David Cameron has told Gordon Brown he will be ousted if he does not drop his "deeply unpopular" plans for higher road tax on more polluting cars. | |
In angry question time exchanges, he challenged Mr Brown: "Don't you understand that if you don't get rid of it, they will get rid of you?" | In angry question time exchanges, he challenged Mr Brown: "Don't you understand that if you don't get rid of it, they will get rid of you?" |
But the PM said the Tory leader sounded "more like a used car salesman". | |
Some green groups say the tax should apply to new cars only, rather than all cars bought since 2001. | |
Owners of some of the oldest cars could face a tax rise of as much as £200 - a move which the Conservatives and many Labour MPs say will hit poorer drivers the hardest. | |
It's not my backbenchers who are telling me to get on my bike David CameronConservative leader | |
Mr Brown insisted that 24 of the top 30 models of car would incur the same vehicle excise duty or lower. | |
But Mr Cameron hit back: "What you are doing is treating the Ford Focus as one model - in fact there are 40 models of the Ford Focus. You've got the saloon and the estate." | |
He said owners of only three of these 40 models would be better off. "When are you going to stop using such dodgy statistics to back up your figures?" | |
Mr Brown, who taunted the Tory leader for riding his bike to work while a car followed with his bags, said: "When are the Conservative Party going to be honest when they say they support green taxes and then they run away from everyone of them? | |
"You are sounding more and more like a used car salesman today." | |
'Stealth tax' | |
Mr Cameron retorted: "It's not my backbenchers who are telling me to get on my bike." | |
He said the road tax hike was "not a green tax, it's a stealth tax". "What on earth is green about taxing someone who bought a Ford Mondeo five years ago?" | |
Mr Brown replied that the shake up of vehicle excise duty would save 1.3m tonnes of CO2 and increase the number of clean cars. |