Fuel Duty

snowflake5 Tue May 27, 2008 at 05:01:18 PM GMT Print-friendly version Facebook

Just thought it would be helpful to post some stats on Fuel Duty



The following figures come from the AA.  Unleaded petrol was introduced in 1988. The following table shows the price in pence per litre, and the percentage of the price that is fuel duty. 

1988 36.73 61.10% 
1989 38.52 59.25% 
1990 42.76 58.65% 
1991 46.06 61.55% 
1992 46.08 65.55% 
1993 49.54 67.13% 
1994 51.70 69.64% 
1995 54.20 73.17% 
1996 56.66 76.10% 
1997 61.97 77.14% 
1998 65.17 81.48% 
1999 70.58 81.14% 
2000 80.77 75.07% 
2001 76.78 75.33% 
2002 74.33 76.56% 
2003 76.56 75.26% 
2004 80.87 73.18% 
2005 87.22 68.89%
2006
2007 95.10 66.7% 

For some unknown reason their table only goes to 2005 - the 2007 figure comes from Petrol Prices.com. If you want to see the diesel prices, click the AA link - the fuel duty as a % of pump price of diesel tracks that of unleaded petrol.

There are several interesting things to note. First, in 2000, Labour abolished the fuel-price escalator that was introduced by the Conservatives in 1993, and the fuel duty as a % of the pump price immediately started to drop. Fuel duty was also frozen from 2003 to 2007.

The price at the pump at the moment for unleaded is 114.9p. This is 42% higher than the 2000 price of 80.77p, which implies an increase of 4.5% per annum. Which doesn't sound too bad put like that, till you realise that most of the increase has happened in the last couple of years. 

Part of the point of fuel duty is to persuade people to buy smaller more-fuel efficient cars when they replace their existing cars. The other part is to assure manufacturers who have several years lead time when designing cars that yes, fuel-efficient cars will be marketable regardless of what happens to the oil price, thanks to fuel duty. This was the key lesson from the 70's when several American manufacturers produced innovations like electric cars, which came onstream just as the oil price collapsed circa 1985. They lost money and refused to invest anymore in the expensive technology - it's no accident that all the fuel-efficient cars come from Japan and Europe where fuel-duty has been ratcheted up. 

The national fleet gets replaced on average every seven years or so. Constantly jacking up the fuel-duty should in theory have meant that by now everyone would have been driving efficient cars. Some people have switched to fuel-efficient cars - but SUVs also took off after 2000, as the plethora of 4x4s and large family cars on the roads indicate.  

OK SUVs were developed for the American market, but why have so many Brits bought them? In part this must have been a function of the way the pump price remained flat at about 80p from 2000 to 2004, while earnings were rising steadily and Britain was getting rich. How many valuable commodities have a flat price for five years? Did Blair and Brown make a mistake in 2000 coming off the fuel-price escalator? If staying on had forced everyone into smaller cars by now, eight years down the line, would people be able to withstand the oil price spike better now?

The government has also been trying hard via speed-cameras and advertising to get people to slow down when driving, not just because of road deaths, but because speeding burns excessive fuel. We've failed, thanks to campaigns in the Daily Mail about the right of the motorist to speed.  Only now with the oil price hike are people going to the AA's website to read about how sticking to the speed limit saves you money.

Funnily enough the same lorry drivers who forced us off the fuel-price escalator in 2000 are complaining again now. the government shouldn't budge. It just means postponing the evil day when people have to adjust to a world of high oil demand and hence high oil prices.  I note the Conservatives are keeping silent about this. Their idiot supporters are much more vocal. It's Gordon's fault the pump price is so high, they yell, ignoring the fact that the fuel duty hasn't increased nearly so fast under Labour as under the Tories. These silly people probably believe that a Conservative government will cut fuel duty. Some probably believe the Conservatives will strike oil in Notting Hill. As if.

P.S. I forgot to add that the Labour government, with some foresight, announced in 2006 that fuel-efficient driving would be part of the driving test from 2008. It was the idea of one Alistair Darling when he was transport secretary. See here for details


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Fuel Duty | 31 comments (31 topical)

Re: Fuel Duty (#1)

by bishophill on Tue May 27, 2008 at 07:12:34 PM GMT

If you have a large family, how do you avoid having a large family car?


Re: Fuel Duty (#3)

by snowflake5 on Tue May 27, 2008 at 08:34:03 PM GMT

Depends on what you mean by "large family". A five-member family (mother, father, and three children) will fit into a five-door hatchback, with the three kids in the back seat. 

Families with more than three children are rare. They were more common in the 60's and 70's, when incidently, ordinary people didn't bother with 4x4s and somehow managed. Makes you think, doesn't it? 


[ Parent ]

Re: Fuel Duty (#6)

by AngryVoter on Tue May 27, 2008 at 09:27:06 PM GMT

Now try bringing along two of those kids friends...

Oh wait.....

 "They were more common in the 60's and 70's, when incidently, ordinary people didn't bother with 4x4s and somehow managed. Makes you think, doesn't it? "

 That's because nobody owned many cars in the 60's and only became more common in the 70's, the population was about half also, only around 35/40 million and not 60 as it is today. Even then it was generally the train or public transport [when they weren't on strike] that had larger families move around, or they didn't go very far.

I.E all within walking distance instead of the larger distances now involved with simple things like going to School or to the Supermarket/Hypermarket. Or because smaller places within walking distance, such as the cinema, are now replaced with larger multiscreens in towns several miles over [My town had two single screen cinemas in the 1960's. It now has none and the nearest is 5 miles away, necessating some form of vehicular transport to get to it.]

Fact is families buy the larger cars to be able to bring all of their own kids along, plus friends. You might as well use one vehicle instead of two.

Think about it, two smaller and efficent cars are going to cause nearly the same amount of pollution as the single big car, not to mention more congestion, even more tax and everything else...

The reality is it isn't the Fuel Duty Tax that is the key problem, its the most prominent because it does take a disproportionate amount from the actual price of fuel, as we can see, 60%+ is in taxes even today in 2005.

Taxes increasing elsewhere along with the growing cost of living is what is becoming the real bite here, increases in Council Tax [Mercifully kept in line with inflation here with my Tory dominated council, Labour wanted to increase it by nearly 8% again...] along with road fund licensing tax and other taxes here and there all always going up soon and all add up quite considerably.

However Fuel Duty is the most prominent because:

1) It's the one we all pay the most frequently

2) The disproportionate amount of the income to the governmental coffeurs in comparison to the overall real price of fuel.


[ Parent ]

Re: Fuel Duty (#8)

by snowflake5 on Tue May 27, 2008 at 10:56:20 PM GMT

Come on, listen to yourself whinge!  eg the claim that school isn't within walking distance any more. Actually, the parent can select the closest school to their home.  Most are within a mile or two.  There is such a thing as walking to school or - shock horror - catching the bus!!!

I actually didn't go to the closest school to my home and instead went a Catholic school three miles from home - and caught the bus every day, no problem. That was in the '80's.


Secondly, there are fuel-efficient cars that carry lots of people - you just need to seek them out. Trouble is people don't bother to seek them out. They pretend to themselves that they don't exist, or make the spurious argument that you just did - which is that if they didn't buy the gas-guzzler they'd be "forced" to buy two cars instead. Please!

Finally - speeding. You can make your fuel go a lot further if you just don't speed. Yet you see people overtaking just in order to accelerate to a red light and slam on the brakes! You see conservative voters complaining that the goverment is trying to get them to stick to the speed limit. There has even been a campaign against speed-cameras, even though they are only placed in spots where at least four people have died through accidents. 

I personally think the Labour government spoilt people by keeping the pump price flat for the five years between 2000 and 2004. It allowed people to delude themselves that somehow petrol would be cheap relative to their growing incomes, even as they saw demand increase in the east. 

Mr Market - far more brutal than any government - has done the job instead, and very harshly in a short timespan. And strangely, conservatives who supposedly worship the market, are whinging the most. All those people expecting the Conservatives to cut fuel duty are kidding themselves. You can cut once, and then again, and again, till the duty is cut to zero and the oil price still climbs due to 2 billion people all deciding they want cars. Then what? Are people going to run to government for a subsidy next?

People need to spend times adapting their lives. Unfortunately they are instead spending time whinging for Britain as though it was an Olympic sport. 


[ Parent ]

Re: Fuel Duty (#11)

by bishophill on Wed May 28, 2008 at 09:06:56 AM GMT

Not since the government introduced the booster seat legislation they won't. I had to trade up to a small tank because I couldn't get three across the back seats.


[ Parent ]

Re: Fuel Duty (#5)

by CitizenAndreas on Tue May 27, 2008 at 08:43:20 PM GMT

How about a Volkswagen Touran MPV 2.0 TDI 140 SE
7 seats, Road tax Band D (£145), 47.1 mpg.

Efficient, with room for a large family.


[ Parent ]

Re: Fuel Duty (#2)

by matt1986 on Tue May 27, 2008 at 07:41:07 PM GMT

Yes, I completely agree, and it's all really worth pointing out. I didn't know the exact statistics; they're even more surprising than I thought. And yes, there's only so much the government can do about global oil supply and declining amounts of fossil fuels on the earth; Brown isn't to blame. It's time to get used to the fact that prices will almost certainly never be as low as they have been again. The huge demand for fuel that exists ensures this. And it means that if the government reduced the duty, companies would know they could get away with increasing the price they charge before tax is added on; they know people will buy fuel whatever happens.


Re: Fuel Duty (#4)

by snowflake5 on Tue May 27, 2008 at 08:37:33 PM GMT

"they know people will buy fuel whatever happens"

Yes. People will continue to do the same miles per annum no matter what, due to where they work and where they live. They only way to get the volume of petrol consumed down is to force people into more fuel-efficient cars, so that the litres/mile drops.


[ Parent ]

UK bottom of EU for public transport use (#7)

by rwendland on Tue May 27, 2008 at 10:35:12 PM GMT

Very interesting numbers. Hadn't realised how much duty % had dropped since 2000.

Taking a nose at the RAC Foundation stats, I discovered the UK is bottom of EU-15 in the public transport use table, despite having near the highest population density which should make public transport use easier:

EU transport mode table 

Ireland uses twice the public transport km % than the UK.

We need to encourage public transport. What are we doing wrong?

  • Not enough subsidy?
  • Rubbish at inter-modal transfer?
  • UK psyche / media influence?
  • The school kids car run?
  • Clarkson & Top Gear?
  • Increased affluence in the UK :-)
What is to be done? Improving this would help limit fuel price impact.


Re: UK bottom of EU for public transport use (#18)

by otware on Wed May 28, 2008 at 05:04:41 PM GMT

Nationalisation.


[ Parent ]

Re: Fuel Duty (#9)

by lambethlife on Tue May 27, 2008 at 11:24:06 PM GMT

Good points all made in the article and in most of the responses - if these were more widely known and perhaps stated by the government spokespeople the general public would accept that fuel taxation is not the problem.

I think the problem is that a large proprtion of the cost of car ownership is made up of fixed costs - ie road tax, insurance, depreciation, parking permit cost (and to some extent servicing costs as well) - which are paid whether the motorist travels 5,000 miles or 15,000 miles a year.

To tackle this the government should / could make moves to relate the cost more to the distance travelled in a year.

Measures such as road tolls and maybe greater use of pay as you go insurance (like that offered by Norwich Union) could help to reduce car usage. At the same time the government should reduce road tax so that  the it cannot be portrayed as money grabbing.

If the measure were introduced car usage would become more comparable with public transport where the cost is generally paid in full each time. Of course the government should subsidise public transport more and build new facilities so that it is less costly and more convenient and so more appealing

The government might also consider reducing the costs of road tax in areas where public transport provision is never going to be as viable as in urban areas like I belive they do in France.


Re: Fuel Duty (#10)

by lambethlife on Wed May 28, 2008 at 12:09:19 AM GMT

My thoughts on the question posed above are

  • Not enough subsidy?

Yes - if it were cheaper and convenient I'm sure more people would use public transport. However the number of people using trains is at an all time high so there needs to be large amounts of investment in the actual public transport facilities to cope with any increased demand. The government should in my opionion be concentrating on building rail rather than a new runway at heathrow for example, it should also be encouraging the new tram/light rail schemes that all seem to take 10+ years and are liable to Department of Transport cancellation at any time.

When I visited Le Mans and Angers and several other cities in France last year many had tram schemes that were being built/ newly built and all seemed to have taken four years or less between decision and implementation. Maybe this also relates to UK local government which does not have the resources and is too much under central government control to implement innovative local public transport schemes.

  • Rubbish at inter-modal transfer?
The problem in my opinion is that public transport outside of London is run by private operators - what is needed is local government coordination of trains/ buses/ trams so that travelcard type tickets can be used. these should also receive a  greater subsidy so that they are more appealing
  • UK psyche / media influence?
I think Mrs Thatcher's attitude towards public transport does prevail and there is a (largely wrong) feeling that it is for the losers who cannot afford their own cars; certainly this is more applicable to buses than trains etc. There is also a perception of the danger of public transport in terms of the undesireables that use it which will only be tackled when more 'normal' people use it and find that their perceptions are unfounded, of course this will create a virtuous circle whereby the more people who use it the better it will become as the more eloquent middle class users are less likely to put up with poor service.
  • The school kids car run?
Schools need to be encouraging pupils to walk/cycle/bus to school rather than have parents drop them off - there is a role for cycle training and schemes such as the supervised walks to school etc to encourage children and allay parents' fears . i think there should also be a move to make all schools of a high standard so that children do not have to travel long distances to go to a school that their parents deem acceptable.
  • Clarkson & Top Gear?
I think they are symptoms not causes of the problem. If you went to the Netherlands and other European nations I'm sure you would find such attitudes among  people - its just that there is a strong belief in public transport/ cycling etc as well
  • Increased affluence in the UK :-)

Similarly if not more affluent comparable European nations such as Germany and France have greater use of public transport so I dont think it directly relates to affluence.

 

Other factors I would add in are

The falling real cost of car purchase over the past 20 or so years

The falling real cost of fuel - since the price rises of the late 1970s fuel has until recent years risen at a lower level than the general rate of inflation (I'm sure someone can quote figures for me on this)

Government's failure to fund and give public transport prominence in general programmes - starting with the withdrawl of trams across most of Britain in the 1950s onwards to the cutbacks on the rail in the 1960s and bus deregulation in the 1980s  British governments have worked on the basis until recently that provision for private cars should be given greater priority than public transport. We are living with the effects of these policies today - years of underinvestment in public transport mean that it is in many cases running at near to full capacity and so consequently can at times be unreliable and is expensive

Similarly governments have failed to devote resources to sustainable transport like cycling. It is no coincidence that the Netherlands is cycle friendly now (with something like 30% of journeys in Amsterdam made by bike compared to less than 2% in London despite both cities being similar in terms of distances travelled and hills) - it is a deliberate result of the government's policies to encourage cycling in the 1960s by for example building in cycle lanes to road developments. This resulted in making cycling 'normal' and not done exclusively by lycra clad people

 


Re: Fuel Duty (#12)

by AngryVoter on Wed May 28, 2008 at 09:34:06 AM GMT

"I think Mrs Thatcher's attitude towards public transport does prevail and there is a (largely wrong) feeling that it is for the losers who cannot afford their own cars; certainly this is more applicable to buses than trains etc."

 

Or it might be a majority of us don't live in big big cities and live in suburban/semi-rural areas and that for me to get to work by bus, as I used to, took me about an hour to travel 5 miles.

Car takes me 20 minutes.

Car wins, by time and long term cost end of.

Any longer journeys though that take me to say, London or North to York/Manchester I tend to take the train.

Trotting out the stock phrase of "It's Thatcher wot done it" is a load of nonsense and straw clutching.

Same as blaming "Top Gear" that a load of lentil eating lunactics in the Guardian still scream should be banned because "they drive very quickly on that show you know, it's frightful!". You're right, they do. Usually in cars none of us can ever afford and only on a specially made track so they can do that, and they do indeed encourage you to go to tracks to drive around acting like a spanner, not on the roads, if you're thick enough to do it then tough.

The reality is it's Arriva's Fault around here. They regularly fiddle with route times and entire routes for no discernable reason, often cancelling routes altogether claiming they're not profitable before another local company set up the same routes and is reporting healthy margins of profit. In other words, locally, transport between towns is rubbish and takes far far too long, and nobody is willing to invest in more convenient routes bar one bus that still takes me 40+ minutes to actually travel those same 5 miles. Double the time it takes me via car.

So again, the car wins now I can drive it. I can actually get to the railway station on time then if I'm travelling further afield [Nearest station is 6 miles away because one authority or another at times cannot agree with eachother at re-instating the local railway service on a line barely 2 miles away]


[ Parent ]

Re: Fuel Duty (#13)

by lambethlife on Wed May 28, 2008 at 11:38:40 AM GMT

When I cited Thatcher I did so as an example of a strand  of public opinion led by the Tory government that developed in this country which was anti public transport.

In 1986 she explicitly linked using public transport with being a failure when she said "Any man who rides a bus to work after the age of 26 can count himself a failure in life" - this was the background against which UK public transport policy operated in the 1980s and which set the scene for a generation.

Thatcher is directly to blame for Arriva buses et al - it was the policy of deregulation introduced in the 1985 Transport Act for everywhere (apart from London) which meant that local authorities no longer had control of the bus services which were left to private operators who could at whim withdraw routes.

It is interesting to note that the only place that didnt have its buses deregulated (London) is the only place where bus usage has increased over the past 20+ years.

 
For further information see the Transport Select Committee report on buses from 2006


[ Parent ]

Re: Fuel Duty (#14)

by RedRooster on Wed May 28, 2008 at 01:31:45 PM GMT

This is probably the best post I've ever read on Labourhome.  Fascinating stats about fuel duty as a % of the cost, and a really good analysis of the long term benefits of fuel efficiency.  Kudos!


Re: Fuel Duty (#15)

by madasafish on Wed May 28, 2008 at 02:36:40 PM GMT

Interesting discussion. I used to commute 50 miles every day to work. 1 hour 5 minutes.
I tried it by train and bus : 4 hours12 minutes.. 3 changes..

Of course, we can reduce car usage: just encourage people to live nearer to work.

Oops we are going to build 25? eco towns in the middle of the countryside!


May I suggest joined up thinking and encouragement of living closer to work is needed. And fewer out of town shopping centres:
which means:
make it easier for people to go into town centres by park and ride systems which are fast and cheap..

So far all the mehpasis is on punishments and penalties. All these do is turn off motorists and make them determine dto subvert the sytem.
Encouragement works better than punishment in changing non criminal behaviour...








Re: Fuel Duty (#17)

by CitizenAndreas on Wed May 28, 2008 at 05:00:38 PM GMT

Sounds familliar, the big problem is that far too many of public transport journeys often end up Bus->Train->Bus meaning that getting the routes to tie up is a nightmare.

In order to work properly public transport needs to ideally be far more direct, generally comprising of one journey plus a short walk at either end. The ideal way to do this is, as you say, to have more housing around cities and centres of employment.

Eco towns will be a bit crap in that regard.


[ Parent ]

Re: Fuel Duty (#20)

by snowflake5 on Wed May 28, 2008 at 06:12:27 PM GMT

Nobody is saying give up cars entirely (you obviously didn't read the article closely enough!). Just switch to a fuel-efficient one and the volume of fuel used (and cost to fill it up) drops.

The most fuel-efficient car, the Honda Insight (2 seater) does 80 mpg. Hummers do about 12 mpg. And in between there is a vast range. It's perfectly possible to get cars doing 50mpg or more. The Toyota Prius which is a 1.5 litre does 65mpg and is particuarly fuel efficient in urban situations. Citroen and Peugeot do diesels that give more than 60mpg.

Then there is the issue of cutting speed. It's expensive doing anything more than 60mph on a motorway for instance. And in urban driving, why on earth do people accelerate towards red lights? And why are Tories so anti-speed cameras when they not only save lives but force the driver to go slowly and hence save his fuel?

The Labour government has made it part of the driving test now to learn to drive in a fuel-efficient manner (and countries like Germany have included this is their driving training for years). Perhaps we need to get older people with their fixed mindsets to re-do this part of the test - it should open their minds.

I think your reponse is typical of many when confronted with the oil price issue. They immediately start talking about public transport as though some automatic switch has tripped in their brains. Then they conclude that as there is no public transport to switch to, this is permission to continue exactly as they are. It's this "all or nothing" mindset that is so counter-productive. Because it's not an all or nothing issue at all. Because fuel-duty or not, in a decade's time the oil price will be even higher as the east becomes middle class.


[ Parent ]

Re: Fuel Duty (#34)

by AngryVoter on Sat May 31, 2008 at 11:43:01 AM GMT

If it were me I'd change those farcical eco-towns into eco-arcologies. Work within walking distance and discourage the use of cars by simply building pavements and pathways instead of roads.

Whole concept of an arcology is to incease the efficency and happiness of the workforce by having everything it needs within the arcology building. Work, entertainment, supplies.

Makes sense to me rather than these silly "eco towns" which're little more than bedroom communities. 


[ Parent ]

Re: Fuel Duty (#16)

by NeilF on Wed May 28, 2008 at 04:54:15 PM GMT

This is an excellent blog post Snowflake5.


Re: Fuel Duty (#19)

by jkitleft on Wed May 28, 2008 at 06:06:36 PM GMT

Angry voter, I'm sorry, but you're wrong on this. I lived in rural Cornwall for the first 11 years of my life. Only farmers needed 4x4's. When I went to a private school in Battersea (school voucher guys, I was forced), two-thirds of the cars were 4x4's. In them, you saw a mother. And one child. Sometimes a dog. And a handbag. Are you really telling me that those people didn't get a smaller car because there wouldn't be enough room to fit two people, and a dog, and a handbag? By the by, 4x4's emit 4 times as many emissions as one normal car, so 2 normal cars would still emit half as many emissions.

I believe that fuel duty should be cut, but that the road tax should apply to SUV's. Instead, we should find other green measures to directly subsidies transport. How about pushing up the cost of short-haul flights, to subsidise train fares? How about VAT on the airlines, which could be diverted to an international Manhatten project for finding alternative sources of energy? How about extending congestion charges to Birmingham, Manchester, Leeds, Liverpool, Glasgow and Edinburgh? How about a law requiring all car manufacturers by 2020, to have all cars going at 50 miles to the gallon? How about a law requiring car manufacturers to build a certain percentage of electric cars, increasing each year? How about we withhold funds from the World Bank until they clean up their act on the environment (and stop subjecting the third world to more poverty, and Iraq to more violence too)? Scarpping the third runway?


Re: Fuel Duty (#22)

by Little Tim McGuire on Wed May 28, 2008 at 10:42:18 PM GMT

Interesting facts about tax as % of price and needs to be said more often.  However, one of the reasons the govt always gives when it increases duty rates is to reduce fuel use by using price as a disincentive.  As the market has now increased fuel price beyond anything the government envisaged there is some justification for the view that the tax element should be reduced as it is no longer necessary to increase the price of fuel artificially.    Apparently, any cut in fuel duty would be covered because the income from VAT on the higher priced fuel already generates more income than the government predicted.  But to do so would send all the wrong signals about the government's green agenda.

The lorry owners will always whinge.  There are too many of them and they undercut each other's margins so that an increase in fuel price makes some of them uneconomic.  It would be difficult for Cameron and Co to back the suggestion that the government should interfere in the market by giving them a fuel rebate not open to the rest of us.  Where do you draw the line? The sales rep could also argue that he/she is an essential car user and so could anyone who uses their car to commute to work.   And once again, the Guardian  today quoted a lorry driver saying that it was cheaper to fill a tank in France and pay the ferry fare.  That may have been true once but, unless it costs less than £60 to catch a return ferry, plus the cost of the driver's time, I don't think it's true any more. 

And let's not forget that the organiser of the 2001 fuel protests later stood as a BNP candidate.  Not relevant to the wider debate of course but needs to be remembered.


[ Parent ]

Re: Fuel Duty (#21)

by jaymason on Wed May 28, 2008 at 08:02:29 PM GMT

A point that hasn't been made yet is that over 90% of supermarkets arev supplied by roadhaulage, diesel makes up around 40% of a hauliers overheads so when diesel rises by around 30% you can see why hauliers are squealing and why food prices are going up. What would be wrong with  duty rfeund for anyone using HGV's reclaiming a percentage of the fuel duty even if it was only enough to level peg them with continental hauliers who pay no tax in UK at all.

We are all paying the hauliers fuel duty everytime we buy anything from the shops


Re: Fuel Duty (#23)

by otware on Thu May 29, 2008 at 03:09:15 AM GMT

I think where possible freight must be put back onto the rail network, off the roads. It would be better for the environment, cheaper and it would reduce traffic too.


[ Parent ]

Re: Fuel Duty (#24)

by AngryVoter on Thu May 29, 2008 at 08:23:07 AM GMT

They already do. The problem is the rails don't go everywhere, they go to centralized depots like DIRFT or smaller facilities at towns and cities. They don't however serve the factories etc up close. So, who takes them from the rail depots to the factories and warehouses?

The Hauliers. 


[ Parent ]

Re: Fuel Duty (#25)

by jkitleft on Thu May 29, 2008 at 02:23:17 PM GMT

Peope are questioning whther incentives or punishments are neede to force drivers to switch to more environmentally sound cars. How about both? Why not use taxes on say, a carbon tax on businesses, or a windfall tax on oil companies, and dramatically pus hup the price of short-haul flights, as well as fuel tax, and VAT on the airlines, to directly subsidies cleaner transport? Make it not just an environmental, but an economic dependence to get on trains. Moreover, the only way we can realistically talk about the environment, is to set up a Manhatten project (like that used for the atom bomb), to find a clean, renewable, but efficient source of energy. We invented the atom bomb this way in less than 5 years, so why not do the same for the environment?

P.S. Please don't take my views on the Manhatten project as an endorsement of proliferation.


Re: Fuel Duty (#26)

by rwendland on Thu May 29, 2008 at 04:50:56 PM GMT

Cannot tax aircraft fuel - a big problem due to the 1944 Convention on International Civil Aviation (aka Chicago Convention). The world needs to do something about that, but I'd gues the U.S. and others would vigourously block changes.


[ Parent ]

Re: Fuel Duty (#31)

by canary11 on Fri May 30, 2008 at 09:59:27 AM GMT

Isn't the bottom line the fact that financial speculators who have now picked the housing market clean have now got to move onto some other commodity that will make them a quick profit, bio-fuels, food, oil, anything in fact that their grubby little business sees fit to decimate. And London the great financial heartland has been given carte blanche to do what it will by our latest incumbents. Remember the Chairman of a venture capital company feeling guilty that his cleaner paid more tax than he did? Never mind according to todays press our Tony now has the capability of turning water into oil.


Re: Fuel Duty (#33)

by snowflake5 on Fri May 30, 2008 at 04:45:18 PM GMT

Please note this from Nick Palmer MP on politicalbetting:

<i>A sidelight from the Finance Bill Committee: the Conservatives on the committee declined to rule out the reintroduction of the fuel price escalator. In the current climate that seems quite unlikely, but if world prices calm down a bit I can see them arguing that fiscal caution plus greenery makes it desirable.

   Nick Palmer MP May 29th, 2008 at 8:55 pm </i>

I would not be surprised if they not only re-introduced the fuel-price escalator but increased VAT from 17.5% to 19%. It's what Tories do, because it hurts the poor. Just think, if Labour had been re-elected in 1979, VAT would still be 8.5%.


Re: Fuel Duty (#35)

by ComradeNorton on Mon Jun 02, 2008 at 07:14:22 PM GMT

This is just another area where we do not show strong leadership.

We have a requirement for a certain amount of tax to be raised for public services.

We have decided to tax certain "vices" in fuel, drink, fags and to a lesser extent anything with VAT and then we go on to tax income and corporate profits.  If people don't like it then tough because its either stick with fuel tax, increase income tax or cut public services so pick which one and stop whining.

Personally I don't particularly want my Tesco's stocked with out of season strawberries from Morroco.  I don't want a 4x4 and I don't see why people live 40-50 miles from their place of work rather than move (although here I would like to see the end of stamp duty which is bloody ludicrous as far as I can make out).  However, if people choose to do those things then fine, but they have to cough up.

Sometimes you just have to say that there are the choices and don't let anyone con you that there are any other alternatives; I am choosing that one; and if you want someone else then sod it and you can vote for them later.


Fuel Duty | 31 comments (31 topical)