Tony's Gang To Legislate On Fuel

[Onchanguy]

What confusion? You asserted that Government wouldn't want a lower price, because a higher price gets them more money.

 

I explained that that isn't true, and then went on to suggest that a higher pump price, as a growth retardant, actually results in them receiving reduced revenue.

 

The Manx Treasury doesn't receive (directly at least) any fuel duty monies and so a decline in fuel purchasing would not effect their income under the new terms of the Common Purse Agreement.

 

Yes, they have a CPA on Fuel Duty but they do receive the VAT on goods including petrol sold here. Any reduction in price/sales would reduce the VAT received. My point was about VAT, not about Fuel Duty.

 

And how is a higher price a growth retardant. People still have to buy the same amount of fuel. Our car uses a certain amount of fuel which we have to put in. The car doesn't know how much the fuel is and doesn't use less fuel because it goes up by x pence a litre. That is our problem.

 

I haven't studied car use but I can't see that fuel price rises have caused a decline in car use. Still seems as busy as ever on our roads despite the rises.

 

I was clearing out old receipts the other day and came across one from about 18 months ago when fuel was 98.9p per litre. I don't see people abandoning cars because fuel has increased by 25% in the last year or so.

[thesultanofsheight]

I haven't studied car use but I can't see that fuel price rises have caused a decline in car use. Still seems as busy as ever on our roads despite the rises.

 

I'd say that the effect is just starting to happen now and that the fuel increases will by Christmas have an impact on car use if prices continue to rise. I've noticed the buses a bit busier in recent weeks.

 

Oh and there's great news for the yuppiy 4 x 4 brigade as well

 

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10...plunges-12.html

[Pat Ayres]

Shell = 122.9p a litre

Total = 119.9p a litre

 

WTF is going on and does anyone go to Shell anymore?

[Onchanguy]

I haven't studied car use but I can't see that fuel price rises have caused a decline in car use. Still seems as busy as ever on our roads despite the rises.

 

I'd say that the effect is just starting to happen now and that the fuel increases will by Christmas have an impact on car use if prices continue to rise. I've noticed the buses a bit busier in recent weeks.

 

Oh and there's great news for the yuppiy 4 x 4 brigade as well

 

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10...plunges-12.html

 

The buses are busier because of the influx of tourists that the Minister of Glum (Earnshaw) keeps telling us are coming to the island (tongue firmly in cheek.....).

 

Such a shame about the 4x4s. What is the point of them? I can understand farmers having them for driving across fields but what is the point if you live on an estate and just drive to work?

 

If you asked these people to drive a minibus they would refuse but they drive something the same size. What's that about?

 

At least they cost a lot to run in petrol and road tax so I suppose they contribute to the Treasury so they are not totally the work of Satan.

[John Wright]

Just a quick aside for %age and his atack on advocates fees

 

Tynwald has controlled advocates fees since 1777

 

It still does

 

There was never a ceiling on the fee to be negotiated and agreed between an advocate and his own client except for conveyancing where there was a fixed fee.

 

What was controlled by Tynwald was the rate at which a winning advocate could recover costs on behalf of the winning party from the losing party, to reimburse the winner his costs, and legal aid rates.

 

So you employed an advocate at £150 per hour, won your case and costs, but only recovered costs on the scale at £38.70, so the winning party lost, not the advocate. The scale of fees hourly rate was aproximately the legal aid rate

 

Under the new sytem under the 1995 Act and 2000 rules, most of which I drafted and or negotiated the rates on;

 

First the Conveyancing scale is a maximum scale, not a fixed scale and so advocates are limited in what they can charge but can reduce prices and compete, and the scale is lower than the old fixed scale. As all Island becomes rergistered land and for transfers of registered land costs should fall. It wil take about 50 yeras for all titles to be registered.

 

Second the recoverable rate is based on the legal aid rate plus an uplift based on how difficult, urgent, important, how much invloved, how long it took, experience exercise so again you employ an advocate at £300+, win, but only recover part of what it cost. Legal aid is now £120 approx and minimum uplift is 50-% for a straightforward case so you are still out of pocket.

 

By controlling legal aid government still controls the amount pf recoverable legal costs for winners

[%age]

What was controlled by Tynwald was what a winning advocate could recover from the losing party . . . . .

 

I do not understand this point you make John?

[John Wright]

Simple. My contract with my client was that he paid me £150 per hour. I won the case for my client and the loser was ordered to pay my clients costs. The scale came into play then because the recoverable amount was calculated on the scale not by reference to what my clienthad agreed and paid me. So say the case took 10 hours, my client paid me £1,500 but the scale limited what he got back from the loser to £378.

 

So it was the winner, the person whose rights had been wronged, who lost out under the scale not the advocate

[%age]

John

 

er, but what is 'the scale' and how on earth can it limit what he paid back?

[Gladys]

It is the same in the UK where costs in a hearing are 'taxed', in other words assessed independently and according to a scale.

[triskelion]

Yes, they have a CPA on Fuel Duty but they do receive the VAT on goods including petrol sold here. Any reduction in price/sales would reduce the VAT received. My point was about VAT, not about Fuel Duty.

 

And how is a higher price a growth retardant. People still have to buy the same amount of fuel. Our car uses a certain amount of fuel which we have to put in. The car doesn't know how much the fuel is and doesn't use less fuel because it goes up by x pence a litre. That is our problem.

 

I haven't studied car use but I can't see that fuel price rises have caused a decline in car use. Still seems as busy as ever on our roads despite the rises.

 

I was clearing out old receipts the other day and came across one from about 18 months ago when fuel was 98.9p per litre. I don't see people abandoning cars because fuel has increased by 25% in the last year or so.

I'm not sure if I follow you? All VAT and duties revenue is passed to the UK Treasury under the Common Purse Agreement.

 

Its exactly because the volume of petrol consumed doesn't change that makes it a growth retardant. You have to spend more and more money on a similar quantity of a good. This leaves less for other things (clothes, meals, food, entertainment, financial services etc) that drive growth. Since margins are so small in the retailing of petrol and diesel, we are not going to see any expansion in that sector in terms of employment or output, but it will take more and more of our money, lessening the amount we put into other sectors (partially resulting in the slowdown we are experiencing now.)

 

I can't say I've particularly noticed a decline in car use either, but a newspaper article was linked to from here recently that stated UK stations had recorded a 25% drop in sales (by volume). Whilst I doubt it is quite as severe over here, where we are, after all, substantially more wealthy, it remains probable that sales have also dropped here.

[Bombay Bad Boy]

Supermarkets cut prices again

[%age]

Simple. My contract with my client was that he paid me £150 per hour. I won the case for my client and the loser was ordered to pay my clients costs. The scale came into play then because the recoverable amount was calculated on the scale not by reference to what my clienthad agreed and paid me. So say the case took 10 hours, my client paid me £1,500 but the scale limited what he got back from the loser to £378.

 

So it was the winner, the person whose rights had been wronged, who lost out under the scale not the advocate

 

 

It is the same in the UK where costs in a hearing are 'taxed', in other words assessed independently and according to a scale.

 

Same as the UK? No chance.

 

And what on earth is this "scale" you are imagining John and Gladys?

 

In a recent case where the costs in a hearing were 'taxed', an advocates considerable costs to be paid at well over £300 an hour were reduced by the sum of . . . . . zero. . . . Zilch . . . . sweet FA.

 

The Government once had control over advocates fees but Chief Minister Tony Brown himself, in the House of Keys has clearly made his stand on this that Advocates Fees are simply governed by market forces. If you don't like it then go somewhere else. Which is not much consolation for someone who has been roped into a court action and then ends up paying the other side's fees of many tens of thousands of pounds.

 

But there again . . . this is the Isle of Man. The Government and their employees mustn't upset Athol Street, especially where money is concerned.

 

Double gins all round at the golf club.

[Declan]

Are you really expecting them to remember their precise intent of every word from 2 months ago?

[Sebrof]

when across I used toget 40p for the first 10,000 miles and 25p after tax free which considering I did on average 30,000 miles a year was a nice bonus........

 

Highly unlikely.

 

Tynwald members are paid for travelling to the office. You were almost certainly paid for travelling from the office.

 

S

[Sebrof]

Simple. My contract with my client was that he paid me £150 per hour. I won the case for my client and the loser was ordered to pay my clients costs. The scale came into play then because the recoverable amount was calculated on the scale not by reference to what my clienthad agreed and paid me. So say the case took 10 hours, my client paid me £1,500 but the scale limited what he got back from the loser to £378.

 

So it was the winner, the person whose rights had been wronged, who lost out under the scale not the advocate

 

 

It is the same in the UK where costs in a hearing are 'taxed', in other words assessed independently and according to a scale.

 

Same as the UK? No chance.

 

And what on earth is this "scale" you are imagining John and Gladys?

 

In a recent case where the costs in a hearing were 'taxed', an advocates considerable costs to be paid at well over £300 an hour were reduced by the sum of . . . . . zero. . . . Zilch . . . . sweet FA.

 

The Government once had control over advocates fees but Chief Minister Tony Brown himself, in the House of Keys has clearly made his stand on this that Advocates Fees are simply governed by market forces. If you don't like it then go somewhere else. Which is not much consolation for someone who has been roped into a court action and then ends up paying the other side's fees of many tens of thousands of pounds.

 

But there again . . . this is the Isle of Man. The Government and their employees mustn't upset Athol Street, especially where money is concerned.

 

Double gins all round at the golf club.

 

So you know better than the man who wrote the rules?

 

You must be very clever.

 

Just to repeat what John Wright said: advocates can charge what they like, and always could. But when costs are awarded against the losing party in a case, the winner will not recover all his costs; only what is permitted under the scale.

 

In the case you mention, either you are mistaken, or the complexity of the case merited a higher hourly rate than normal.

 

S