Pressure at the pumps
David Blackburn 6:00pm
Away from the clamour in the chamber over the bowdlerisation of the NHS reforms, a group of MPs led by Robert Halfon convened in Westminster Hall earlier this afternoon to debate how rising fuel costs might be abated. Treasury minister Justine Greening attended for the government.
With the average price of unleaded at 136.9p/litre and diesel at 141.5p/litre last month, fuel costs are now a major concern for ordinary families. According to the campaign group Fair Fuel UK, who are working with the MPs, the average motorist who has to drive to work spent £33/week on petrol last year, taken from median pre-tax earnings of £499/week in 2010. With inflation now rampant, this burden is becoming unsustainable for many.
Campaigners implore that it needn’t be so. Research by the AA suggests that many oil companies do not pass on falls in the wholesale price of oil to the consumer. The MPs insisted that there should be greater transparency in the oil industry to ensure that consumers are protected and the activities of rapacious oil companies better regulated. The attraction for the government is that the MPs want windfall taxes to be placed on oil companies’ profits if they do not cut pump prices in line with wholesale prices. On the other hand, the MPs are pressing for a guarantee from the Chancellor that fuel duty will remain frozen throughout this parliament. According to the Office for Budegt Responsibility, fluctations in duty of 1p cost or benefit the Exchequer £500m. Duty is due to rise next January.
Interestingly, this small campaign was covered in all of the major tabloids today. The mass appeal of fuel prices encouraged Ed Balls to concentrate on the subject in the prelude to the Budget, which perhaps forced George Osborne to cut duty by 1p. Osborne may have to repeat the trick because it is surely just a matter of time before Balls alights on Halfon’s campaign.
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Rhoda Klapp
June 14th, 2011 6:31pm Report this commentWhy not mention domestic energy costs, which are not only subject to market variations but also to government interference following the insane carbon agenda? So we can pick on evil oil companies? Oh, and now we want a windfall tax out if it. Whoever in the world do you think will end up paying for that? Lunacy.
DZ
June 14th, 2011 7:15pm Report this commentOn the subject of taxes affecting travel: my Air France ticket to west Africa cost this (according to the breakdown of costs in the paperwork):
Fare £217
Taxes £422.53
Cost of transport: £639.53 (return fare).
I think that is 195% tax.
Yes, one hundred and ninety five percent.
JohnPage
June 14th, 2011 7:26pm Report this commentRhoda's right. You and those MPs are in the same bubble of smugness.
Frank P
June 14th, 2011 8:03pm Report this comment"Research by the AA suggests that many oil companies do not pass on falls in the wholesale price of oil to the consumer."
No shit, Sherlock!
But brother do they pass on the hikes in tax and oil price - in which the government colludes with its A-rab friends, with instantaneous effect.
I have caused top villains to get lotsa porridge for perpetrating less serious extortion than this rip-off.
Every pump on every forecourt is a one armed bandit. Once I saw Gordon's Brown's face in the glass as I filled up; now it's David Cameron's. And that shyster Obama's of course; it's his deliberate destruction of the American dollar that is fuelling much of this; Cameron is more of a poodle to Obama, than Blair was to Dubya.
When's the next election? Bring it on!
Driving a car is fast becoming the prerogative of the rich. Basta!
"This burden is becoming unsustainable for many".
For all, actually, except of course the well-off and privileged - and those on exes for car travel.
"All the more room on the roads for them", seems to be the wheeze.
How did they straighten the Road Haulage industry, FFS? Last time there was a fuel crisis like this, Britain's roads came to a standstill. Ditto repeato - please chaps! I'll join the blockade. Last time it happened I got trapped in Norfolk without petrol and decided to retire here, so I'm on hand for some action, now.
“George Osborne reduced the duty by a penny”!
B-I-G F-U-C-K-I-N-G D-E-A-L!!
I'm quite prepared to give those pennies back, one by one if he'll report to my gaff and bend over! How's that for loose change, Georgie boy!! And here's an old style threepenny bit - broadsides, as vigorish. Mind you – as he spends so much time with Mandleslime, he’d probably enjoy that!
Baron
June 14th, 2011 8:06pm Report this commentanother windfall tax on the oil companies to squander the receipts on more useless wind farms? Is that it? Madness.
Frank P
June 14th, 2011 8:15pm Report this commentThat must have been an interesting meeting this pm. 'Justin' and 'Halfon', mmmmm! Adjustments needed obviously. Tried modified crucified?
silverfox
June 14th, 2011 8:30pm Report this commentWhat isn't mentioned is the weakness of sterling with oil priced in dollars!
disenfranchised
June 14th, 2011 9:06pm Report this commentwhilst having our motah washed recently i was offered an unsolicited view on fuel prices by an unexpectedly friendly eastern european. diesel was soon going to cost, ha ha ha, 2 quid a litre.
when i asked where he'd gained such insight, he replied that his country's far tougher culture enabled it's people to accept these unpalatable realities far better than softie, welfare cultures like the one into which he'd dropped.
so my question is this: with nothing but fantasy and delusion being delivered to them by their political class, are your average britons now incapable of accepting harsh reality and conditioned only to blue sky thinking?
an ex-tory voter
June 14th, 2011 9:28pm Report this comment"it's all the fault of the rapacious oil companies"
To expect the populace to believe that is to insult their intelligence. This chancellor and his predecessor have got away with that one for longer than they deserve. Motorists are at last beginning to notice where the majority of the pump price goes. Politicians participating in this latest diversionary tactic will earn no plaudits from their much abused and long suffering voters.
daniel maris
June 14th, 2011 10:13pm Report this commentWhy not subsidise electric vehicles - that will get the petrol price down.
Moraymint
June 14th, 2011 10:20pm Report this commentFor the next few years politicians, economists and others will go through contortions trying to understand why energy costs, and especially the costs of oil and oil-related products are rising inexorably.
Few if any of them will alight on the root cause: peak oil.
Eventually, when our society and the political elite that, supposedly, leads our society, together understand, acknowledge and accept peak oil it could well be too late to do much about the consequences.
It's sad really.
Ruby Duck
June 15th, 2011 12:46am Report this commentWhat disenfranchised said.
Part of an answer is that the persistent bleat of the public sector is what gets reported, and it's giving us all a bad name.
John
June 15th, 2011 1:54am Report this commentWe're a long way away from peak oil; at the moment it's OPEC restricting supply and keeping wholesale prices high. Beyond that its TAX TAX and more TAX. They kept the electorate in the dark on that for a long while, quite impressive really, but they've pushed it too far and now everyone has seen where the majority of the fuel price goes - the Treasury.
Btw. in a hundred years, when petroleum finally does start to run low, we'll have switched over to LPG from all those fancy new - and enormous - shale gas formations.
We can safely allow the market to take care of things by itself, as usual.
TomTom
June 15th, 2011 7:02am Report this commentLet ALL taxpayers claim a mileage allowance to travel to work. Make it the same as MPs and Local Government Staff can claim and code it into PAYE
Pot Head
June 15th, 2011 7:38am Report this commentThe amount of fuel duty you pay is voluntary , unlike PAYE which is not. The amount of tax you volunteer to pay depends on the amount you decide to drive and the speed & the vehicle you choose to drive in.
When I stop seeing people speeding on mototrway in gas guzzling vehicle , then i'll know fuel duty is too expensive..
Perry
June 15th, 2011 8:02am Report this comment... and thinking of high oil prices, - anyone care to enlarge on why there are tankers full of oil dotted round the coast, just basking in the sunshine while they remain at anchor?
I only ask.
Sean Haffey
June 15th, 2011 8:09am Report this commentThis has been coming for a while. I blogged on it back in March
http://sean-haffey.blogspot.com/2011/03/50p-to-set-us-free.html
In essence, if the government wants to perk up the economy and make the UK a good place to invest, reducing fuel duty would be a good start. Say by taking off 1p in duty a month for the rest of the parliament?
Sean Haffey
June 15th, 2011 8:26am Report this comment>Pothead
No, the amount I spend on fuel duty really isn't voluntary.
I can drive to work in 30 minutes and I drive a very fuel-efficient car. Taking public transport would be about two and a half hours.
alexsandr
June 15th, 2011 9:05am Report this commentthe increase of fuel proces has increased the VAT take. Why can't we have this back with a reduced rate on road fuel and household fuel? The increase in fuel proces should not increase the tax take.
oldtimer
June 15th, 2011 9:14am Report this commentThe default argument for politicians is to blame business in order to draw criticism away from themselves. As we all know the dominating element in petrol and diesel prices is the tax imposed. We see the same thing in Scotland over electricity prices.
The next blog headline on rising energy costs will not be "Pressure at the pumps" but, more likely, "Turd hits the fan" as consumers mark, learn and inwardly digest the implications of the National Grid`s forecasts for the next ten years.
The Register has a report on the subject, together with a link to the main report at
www.theregister.co.uk/2011/06/14/national_grid_2020/
There are two choices I see here. Either start knitting lots of woolly jumpers to keep warm in winter or get rid of MilibandE, Cameron, Clegg, Huhne and Salmond, who insist that windfarms are the answer to our energy future, and choose politicians ready, willing and able to repeal the Climate Change Act.
alexsandr
June 15th, 2011 9:26am Report this commentoldtimer@June 15th, 2011 9:14am
Who's that then???????
Axstane
June 15th, 2011 9:27am Report this commentPothead
Whether you pay fuel duty or not is not a matter of choice. For some, in rural areas, it is unavoidable.
For everyone, if you eat food or wear clothes you are paying an everincreasing fuel duty element in the price of those luxuries.
TomTom
June 15th, 2011 9:41am Report this comment"The amount of fuel duty you pay is voluntary , unlike PAYE which is not."
PAYE is VOLUNTARY. Go Self-Employed and don't be in PAYE. Go Unemployed and opt out.
dorothy wilson
June 15th, 2011 10:03am Report this commentThe village where I live is a linear one with the main street just about a mile long. Our small school is more or less in the middle of that so no village child need walk more than half a mile to lessons. Yet the yummy mummies still get out their cars, including four wheel drives, to save the little darlings using their legs.
oldtimer
June 15th, 2011 11:18am Report this comment@alexandr
In the short run (ie in this Parliament) it will only happen if enough back benchers work up a head of steam. To get them energised voters need to lobby their MPs. If enough do it, it will have an effect.
Xeelee
June 15th, 2011 11:36am Report this commentWhat's our oil doing under their sand?
Dimoto
June 15th, 2011 2:56pm Report this commentDoubt the long distance truckers will join the campaign - now that gas/diesel prices in all the neighbouring European countries are as high or higher than ours.
Cogito Ergosum
June 15th, 2011 5:42pm Report this commentFuel tax could be reduced enormously if the money was spent solely on roads instead of propping up the 'benefits culture'.
More generally, under the Cogito Tax Initiative, the upper classes would pay for defence; the middle calsses for the police; and the working classes for social security. State education would be abolished, since it demonstrably achieves nothing these days. The result would be people paying only for the services most important to them.
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