With GDP growth slowing, unemployment and inflation
rising, astonishingly Rachel Reeves still claims she has stabilised the
economy.
Is that what you are experiencing in your daily life?
Ask your MP to stop any hike in Fuel Duty. Better still ask them to cut it!
As we approach the Winter Budget, which has been deceitfully scheduled just a month before Christmas, we will be contacting you with several requests for your vital help in preventing a likely increase in the cost of filling up our cars, vans, and trucks at petrol stations. The first in 15 years.
We reliably hear Rachel Reeves plans to increase Fuel Duty by 10p. With VAT, that’s a 12p per litre hike or over £6 extra per family car fill-up and a staggering £50 more per truck. Trucks that deliver everything in our lives.
Since 2010, your ongoing support—alongside 1.7 million other FairFuelUK supporters—has been instrumental in securing a 10% reduction in fuel duty over the past 15 years. FairFuelUK has saved thousands of pounds in planned fuel duty increases and put that money back into the economy, an estimated £200 billion.
Please don’t underestimate just how much of a difference you make. We must ensure it happens again, but preferably by getting a cut in this regressive tax.
This will indeed be our most intense lobbying battle since 2010.
Had you and other supporters not backed FairFuelUK in the last decade, petrol and diesel could now be running at £2.20 per litre. Consider what those sky-high prices would have done to inflation, economic growth, business investment, job creation, and your disposable income.
Yes, that’s right, our economy would now be in deep, deep recession, if it were not for your help.
The commercial lifeblood of the economy, diesel, here in the UK, remains the most heavily taxed in the world. This fuel influences all our lives, even for those who don’t drive.
It reveals how ignorant a succession of governments' actions are, maintaining the essential driver of economic growth and business survival at exorbitant levels of taxation in the name of the trillion-pound, costly net-zero fantasy.
And of course, for an easy tax grab to fund more and more illegal immigrants.
We have continuously operated purely through the kind generosity of supporters' donations. Those rich trade and motoring associations have done nothing to help with the cost of filling up. Nearly all instead believe and buy into Labour’s Net Zero plans at the detriment of all our wallets.
Here is our BIGASK!
So, I humbly ask if you’d consider making a donation or a regular monthly contribution. We are trying to raise over £50,000 to commission more independent fiscal evidence that raising Fuel Duty will be both economic and political suicide.
Howard Cox
Thanks mainly to FairFuelUK, fuel duty has been frozen for
15 years and remains at its current level, which includes a temporary 5p cut.
Some armchair experts who despise supporting the UK’s 37 million drivers argue
that restoring or unfreezing fuel duty could generate more than £3 billion a
year. Utter nonsense!
The freeze on this regressive tax since 2011 means that
drivers have spent a larger portion of their disposable income, if any, in the
economy, and businesses have remained solvent due to lower-than-expected
transport costs.
Had the fuel price escalator been strictly adhered to, the UK
would now be facing a deep recession. It is now close to that situation.
No other tax exerts such a profound influence on economic
growth, inflation, employment, and business investment as the significant tax
on filling up at the pumps. Every part of our nation relies on road transport
for construction, small trade contractors, food, clothing, internet deliveries,
postal services, medical support, family cohesion, community interaction, and
mental well-being.
We have heard from reliable Treasury sources that the Autumn
Budget will introduce a 10p increase. This marks a reversal of Sunak’s 5p Covid
cut, along with an additional 5p per litre, which will hinder economic growth.
Filling up an average family car after such a punitive tax hike, including the
egregious double tax of VAT, will cost an extra £6.60; an average Transit will
incur £15 more; and a large HGV will face an additional £70.
Any increase in Fuel Duty is regressive and hits low-income
families hardest.
The political left, and, of course, the well-funded, environmentally
conscious Greens, will be salivating with delight at the thought of an end to a
decade-and-a-half freeze on fuel duty. They do not understand how to manage an
economy; their aim is only to wield total control in the hands of wealthy,
unelected idealists.
Therefore, there are limited options for further tax increases, apart from targeting easy ones, such as drivers. This duplicitous and dishonest government
has already targeted pensioners, farmers, private education, and SMEs, and
remains oblivious to how to provide a concrete solution to the cost-of-living
crisis.
Despite the recent decline in pump prices, the UK's annual
inflation rate has risen to 3.8% (July 2025), primarily owing to increased household energy
bills, transport costs, airfares, and council tax. This figure is significantly
higher than that of France (0.9%) and Germany (2.2%) in April.
The Prime Minister has committed the UK to the EU carbon
credit prices, known as European Union Allowances (EUAs). The current rate in
the UK is £64.90 per tonne of CO2 equivalent, while the EU's rate
is higher at around €73.50 per tonne of CO2; prices fluctuate based on
factors such as natural gas prices, energy demand, and the EU's Emissions
Trading System (EU ETS). In simple terms, in the UK, we will have no choice but
to pay more for gas, electricity, and, eventually, much more at the pumps.
Support from anti-driver groups is increasing for the
Chancellor to introduce pay-per-mile car taxes, which would transform the
current system and reportedly recover billions in revenue for the Government.
However, such an approach will never be fair and will disproportionately impact
businesses, raising their costs. A road user fuel tax may seem attractive, but
in reality, it cannot be implemented without incurring significant
administrative costs.
At present, diesel, which serves as the commercial heartbeat
of the economy and is essential for driving economic growth, is the most
heavily taxed fuel in Europe. In Spain, it is taxed 21p less, in Germany at 13p
lower, and in the Netherlands at 25p below the UK.
The average diesel fuel tax in Europe is 15p lower than that
in the UK.
I will fight hard and push Rachel Reeves to implement a sensible
fiscal policy by incentivising lower transport costs through keeping Fuel Duty
frozen for the duration of this Parliament. Additionally, I will ensure that FairFuelUK’s PumpWatch is fully operational to prevent opportunistic
profiteering at the pumps.
Howard Cox, Founder of FairFuelUK