The soaring price of fuel is good news – but only if you are the Prime Minister or Chancellor. According to an analysis by accountants Grant Thornton (reported in the Daily Telegraph), the increase in fuel prices will generate an extra £3 billion this year. This windfall would be enough to fund a 6p cut in fuel duty. But our Prime Minister plans to increase duty by another 2p in April and another in 2009.
With world prices rising so sharply, instead of increasing fuel duty, the Government should use some of the windfall reduce fuel duty, if only temporarily.
The Prime Minister and Chancellor will not listen to hauliers – we don’t have many votes.
But they will listen to voters who have the power to throw them out of office (when there is an election.) Maybe we should start a petition on the 10 Downing Street web site. That cooled the Government’s enthusiasm for road charging last year and it might help us as well. But it will need a huge number of people to sign up if it is to have any impact.