Over the last ten years people living in the countryside have faced wave upon wave of threatened service closures. I have made it my personal crusade to reveal, and where possible overturn, government plans to prevent them from tearing up the fabric of our communities.

Of course one of the knock-on effects of these closures is we have to travel further to get to the post-office or the local pub, let alone the Jobcentre or tax office.

With little in the way of public transport in many rural areas, the only realistic choice for most is to drive.

Last week, Harriet Harman, Labour's Deputy Leader and Leader of the House of Commons, made the extraordinary claim in a debate that the cost of motoring has fallen by 13 per cent over the past 10 years. This is one of the starkest examples yet of how Government Ministers have so lost touch with the reality of life in Britain today.

This claim seems totally at odds with the experience of motorists as petrol prices soar and reform of Vehicle Excise Duty pulls 70 per cent of cars into higher tax bands. The tax take from motorists has risen by an astonishing £10.6 bn since 1997, meaning that the average British motorist is paying more than £1.800 in car-related tax, a 50 per cent increase since Labour came to power.

So now, not only are we forced to use our cars to get to services that used to exist locally, we also have to pay through the nose to do so. This government needs to wake up and recognise how damaging such incessant fleecing of the motorist is to rural life.