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Cut Fuel Duty - Implement PumpWatch - Scrap 2030 Ban - Stop ULEZs/LTNs 
Reverse Anti-Driver Policies Since 2010, 

FairFuelUK has been the only true political voice of UK drivers in Westminster. 

Budget News: March 15th 2023

A Great victory for FairFuelUK Supporters

Chancellor Hunt Ignores the OBR's planned 23% tax rise, listens to FairFuelUK and Supporting MPs and Keeps Fuel Duty at the Current Level 52.95p/Litre

Simple really, because why would any Chancellor sanction a tax rise that would shrink the economy, increase inflation, and add more to the dole queue?

With a policy that has proved so successful, it would be bizarre to change it.  Fuel Duty is a regressive tax and hits  economic growth and the poor hardest.

See Photos of Dozens of MPs who attended a FairFuelUK reception just prior to the Budget 2023 in support of our call for a Fuel Duty Freeze with half wanting a cut too.
  CLICK HERE

Reaction to Budget 2023 from from 3 MPs and FairFuelUK's Founder, Howard Cox

Priti Patel MP says: “This is a great victory for drivers campaigning to keep fuel costs down and families and businesses across the country will welcome the Chancellor’s decision to maintain the freeze on fuel duty. With FairFuelUK we’ve been campaigning to keep fuel costs down to support efforts to curb inflation and to help the economy to grow and I am pleased that the Chancellor has listened. Freezing fuel duty will save businesses thousands of pounds a year and help families every time they fill up their cars.”

Jonathan Gullis MP says: "I am delighted that the Chancellor has listened to FairFuelUK supporters and the 37 million motorists who rely on their cars each and every day by keeping the cut in fuel duty. It proves the Chancellor has our backs and this government backs the great British motorist! This will ensure people keep more of their hard-earned money, which is particularly important in those cost of living crisis and help the Prime Minister and Chancellor in their aims to halve inflation and growing the economy."

Craig Mackinlay MP and Fair Fuel APPG Chair, says: “It is pleasing that the Chancellor has confirmed there’ll be no fuel duty rise in this Budget. We have been lobbying hard for months to get common sense to prevail. This is good news for the millions of motorists who have experienced the most extreme fuel prices over the past year. One of the primary aims of the government is to reduce inflation so I am not altogether surprised. It would have been perverse in the extreme to add to inflation with a tax rise. Thank you, Chancellor.”

Howard Cox, Founder of FairFuelUK says: I am delighted our intense campaigning and lobbying with so many in touch MPs, led by Priti Patel, Craig Mackinlay and Jonathan Gullis, has been highly effective in convincing the Chancellor to keep Fuel Duty frozen. 

The longest ever consumer tax levy freeze, thankfully continues.  It would be churlish not to warmly thank Mr Hunt for today’s welcome news, even though drivers actually wanted a cut in this regressive tax. The Chancellor has inteligently ignored that November 23% bombshell forecasted rise in duty announced by the OBR, by being pragmatic and listening to our fact-based economic reasoning. 

Remember, this is a road user levy that hits the poor hardest and dictates economic growth, cost of living, and jobs. Today’s favourable fiscal announcement will be received very well by motorists, small businesses, low-income families, and truckers. 

But it’s time the Treasury ensures the unchecked profiteering on the forecourts via the secretive price manipulation in the fuel supply chain is at last, made transparent, fair, and honest. The Government must urgently introduce  PumpWatch . Add that to keeping Fuel Duty low and the Tories genuinely stand a chance of winning the next general election.”

Learn more about what might have been.

FairFuelUK STOPPED economic meltdown in the March 2023 Budget. A bombshell fuel duty hike threatened by the OBR following the Autumn Statement in November 2022

Background:

The Chancellor cannot ignore that the OBR's planned 23% duty hike following the November 2022 Autumn Statement, will add 2.3% to inflation, reduce GDP by 1% and cost 37,000 jobs.​"

The Treasury knows full well, petrol and especially diesel prices at the pumps, critically affect inflation, logistics, business viability, jobs, and GDP. As a nation that continues to tax drivers at the highest levels anywhere in the world, its time, way past time, the Chancellor returned some of the incredible huge VAT double taxation windfall from the last year’s high pump prices, to drivers in the form of a 5p cut in Fuel Duty."

Even with such a much needed cut in the diesel levy, the UK will still be paying virtually the highest prices at the pumps for an essential fuel that drives the commercial heartbeat of the economy.

Freezing one of the world's already highest motoring fuel taxes whilst welcomed since 2011, the Treasury must go much further and reduce this regressive tax significantly to put more money into consumer spending and business investment. Inflation is slowly falling because of recent falling pump prices. So wake up please, smell the coffee and recognise Chancellor you could make a massive impact into lessening the cost-of-living-crisis in the stimulation of real economic growth by cutting fuel duty big. And guess what, if you do so, the Tory Party might be re-elected simply by implementing this popular and common sense fiscal strategy.”

Following the OBR’s 23% rise in Fuel Duty post Autumn Statement bombshell, FairFuelUK commissioned the Cebr to assess the impact of the Chancellor’s planned 14.4p/litre levy rise on the already highest taxed drivers in the world.  And made even more shocking, when Rishi Sunak, questioned by the Liaison Committee, refused to deny that this punitive tax hike would not be implemented in the March 2023 Budget.

   The Cebr report’s conclusions are more than damning:      https://fairfueluk.com/OBR 

1. The annual cost of a 23% rise in fuel duty to a van driver is approaching £1,000
2. The annual cost of a 23% rise in fuel duty to an HGV user is approaching £7,000
3. It would add 2.3% to Inflation
4. It would cut GDP by 1%
5. Poorest will be hit hardest

Summary findings:  A 23% rise in fuel duty would create economic damage, cutting GDP eventually by about 1% and reducing employment by about 31,000 jobs.  It would add 2.3% to Inflation - A rise in fuel duty would hit the poorest motorists most. Motorists in the poorest 10% of the population spend proportionately more than twice as much on fuel as the richer groups.

Increasingly the use of road fuel in London is falling as car usage falls.  As a result, a rise in fuel duty is very much a tax imposed by London on the regions. Londoners spend only about a third as much on fuel as the rest of the UK. The impact of any rise in fuel duty will be cumulative. 

Essential vehicle users, especially LGV and HGV drivers, have already been hit recently by closed roads, closed lanes, speed restrictions, increased traffic jams and increased charges and enforcement penalties as a result of recent government actions. The effects of a rise in fuel duty will be hitting sectors that already feel that they have faced an excessive increase in the burdens on them that result from government policy. The annual cost of a 23% rise in fuel duty to a van driver is is approaching £1000

With growth in the online sector, vans are critical to the economy. The increase in the burdens on van drivers, like those on other road users, has already started to impact on their willingness to service clients. If this continues a critical link in the service chain could break.

The HGV sector is in a fragile situation. The average age of drivers is 55 with 13% over 60 and only 2% below 25. Profit margins are estimated at 1% only. The number of owner operators has been falling away. It is conceivable that a rise in duty could be the straw that breaks the camel’s back of this essential service. The annual cost of a 23% rise in fuel duty to an HGV user is approaching £7,000

Any rise in fuel duty would generate much less net revenue than OBR expects because of reduced usage, shifting to other areas of economic activity that are less highly taxed and because of losses of tax revenue from the negative impact on the economy.

Despite the recent freeze and the 5p cut in fuel duty March, UK diesel taxes are the highest in any major European economy while UK petrol prices are amongst the highest.

Cebr research for FairFuelUK has shown that the policy of freezing fuel duty, in place since 2011, has been highly successful, reducing the CPI by 6.7% compared with where it would have been by 2018 and boosting household expenditure by £24 billion.

With a policy that has proved successful, it would be bizarre to change it.