Farron lists Budget demands for South Lakeland

11.11.54am GMT Thu 13th Mar 2008

Local MP, Tim Farron has issued three demands to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Alistair Darling, who delivers his first Budget today. Mr Darling took over last summer when Gordon Brown moved into 10 Downing Street, and has presided over a series of calamities, including losing millions of peoples' personal data on CDs sent in the post.

Mr Farron has given Mr Darling three measures that he wants to see implemented for the benefit of Westmorland and Lonsdale:

Scrap Vehicle Excise Duty for Mountain Rescue vehicles - Tim has been lobbying Treasury Ministers on this issue for several months.

Change the Department for Health's funding formula to give a fairer deal for rural areas.

Scrap the current plans for a change in the Capital Gains Tax rules which encourage excessive second home ownership and provide funding for affordable housing projects in rural areas such as the Home on the Farm scheme.

Ahead of the statement this afternoon, Tim said:

"The three challenges I am issuing are extremely important issues in our area. Mountain Rescue perform a vital job, for example they provided invaluable help after the Grayrigg derailment, scrapping VED on their vehicles is essential for them to survive.

"Under the current funding formula rural areas are significantly short-changed by the Department of Health, I want to see a complete overhaul of the system to fix this.

"Finally it is of the utmost importance that something is done to stop excessive second home ownership in our area and provide affordable housing. The area is haemorrhaging young people because they can't afford to get on the property ladder, we need to address this situation sooner rather than later."