Fuel duty rise in next month’s Budget will be a blow to the North, Chancellor Rishi Sunak warned
A BUDGET rise in fuel duty would be a hammer blow to the North, Rishi Sunak has been warned.
Drivers outside the South East spend a third more of their incomes on fuel, campaigners say.
And if the Chancellor raises the hated 57.95p a litre tax on fuel, it will hit new Tory voters in the former Red Wall areas the hardest, their data shows. Campaigning Tory MP Robert Halfon said: “Coronavirus has hurt the low-paid and increased the cost of living.
“A fuel duty increase would be a hammer blow to workers and our public services.”
Analysis by CEBR for FairFuelUK reveals motorists in London and the Home Counties spend between 2.2 per cent and 3.5 per cent of their household income filling up.
But that figure is 4.5 per cent in the North East — and even more in Wales and Northern Ireland.
'Only so much motorists can take'
WE’RE mobilising supporters to email their MPs and the Treasury to end the idea of raising fuel duty.
There is only so much motorists can take. With diesel and petrol vehicles to be axed in just nine years, keeping fuel duty frozen is the least they can do.
Better still, cut it and watch UK plc and government approval flourish.
- By Howard Cox, pictured, Fair Fuel UK founder
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A decade ago, The Sun launched the Keep It Down fuel duty campaign.
George Osborne, as Chancellor, was so rattled he cut a penny off the tax and it has been frozen ever since.
So we are restarting our crusade again — with the support of FairFuelUK.
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