FairFuelUK is calling on the Chancellor for an urgent cut in Fuel Duty of at least 5p per litre; it has emailed every MP in the country after Brent crude oil hit $130 a barrel.
FairFuelUK argues that the extra VAT generated in the last year and the coming months because of the record prices at the pumps is more than enough to give drivers some respite, and cut Fuel Duty to bring pump prices in line with the average of Europe and make businesses more competitive and viable in a post Covid recovery phase.
“A fighting fit resilient road freight and logistics sector is essential, not only to keep Britain moving, but to help build back better as we return to normality following the pandemic,” the organisation tells the Chancellor in an open email.
“Without your support through the introduction of an essential user rebate, we run the very real risk that as hauliers continue to be hit with sky high diesel prices during a cost-of-living crisis, the industry’s economic future will become ever more uncertain.
“With over half of the cost of a litre of diesel accounted for by tax, we firmly believe that action should be taken to back UK hauliers and keep consumer prices under control through the introduction of an essential user rebate of 15p per litre. This step would mirror an approach taken by many other European nations including Spain, France and Italy which has proved successful.
“For over a decade of campaigning for FairFuelUK, we have witnessed the insidious unchecked fleecing of UK drivers. Our nation’s commercial, community, social heartbeat and our right of travel choice have been so relentlessly demonised and ruthlessly exploited, it has become an institutionalised commercial and fiscal fixation to implement a tsunami of anti-driver policies. And it seems, there are more to come.
“The exploitation of drivers is running even more rampant, with businesses shameless without any compunction using the Ukrainian Conflict to line their pockets. This has to stop. There has to be transparency in the way petrol and diesel prices are reached as ‘global market commodity costs and exchange rates ‘legitimately’ fluctuate.
“Why is the Treasury, and they know full well, not acting to check uncontrolled profiteering is damaging the economy, hitting the already highest taxed drivers in the world, and fuelling inflation? Surely the lack of any monetary help for drivers is not down to the £2bn gargantuan pile of extra VAT the Treasury has relished due to a fortunate high cost of filling up.
“If gas, electricity, water and telecoms get price protection bodies, why shouldn’t motorists have one too? Most of the profiteering is at wholesale level not by small independent retailers, who are also victims of the greedy fuel supply chain.
“It really is time, the Government recognise that reducing the cost of living, should be their prime focus. Cutting Fuel Duty by at least 5p per litre, before pump prices become increasingly more un-affordable and even more debilitating for your constituents, it is the morally and fiscally, right thing to do.”
