UK: Fuel protesters target Parliament as anger boils over at record pump prices

Campaigners will pile pressure on Chancellor George Osborne to lower motoring taxes through a mass lobby of Parliament today.

Organised by the FairFuelUK group, the protest will include the delivery of a key report to 10 Downing Street.

The handover will be followed by a mass lobby of MPs after average petrol prices reached a record high of 137.79p a litre earlier this week, with diesel now at an all-time high of £144.92.
The report is from the Centre for Economics and Business Research (CEBR).

It says that even a modest cut in fuel duty of 2.5p per litre would create 180,000 new jobs.

The main findings of the CEBR report were conveyed to treasury minister Chloe Smith last week when she met FairFuelUK spokesman Quentin Willson and the organisation’s founder Peter Carroll.

The meeting took place after separate findings showed that UK drivers were paying the highest fuel taxes in Europe.

Mr Willson said: ‘We have shared the findings of this report with MPs and ministers. However, with only weeks to go to the Budget, we are concerned that the Government is not listening and not taking on board the significance of these findings.
‘For months, the Government has been wheeling out the same old argument that it can’t afford to cut duty. Here is concrete evidence that it can make such a cut. Families and businesses are being crushed by these cruel levels of tax – 82p on every litre we buy. It’s damaging the economy and holding back growth.’

He went on: ‘The people are clamouring for the Government to look at fuel duty. This research shows that a cut in fuel duty won’t cost the Treasury a penny. It can cut duty and do any of the other options if it so wishes.

‘So it is wrong of the Government to say it’s a choice between a fuel duty cut and other measures. It can, and should, cut fuel duty now.’

At Commons question time, Shadow chancellor Ed Balls told George Osborne: ‘A year ago you promised to get the economy growing and introduce a fair fuel stabiliser which would cut fuel duty when petrol prices were higher.

‘One year on, you are now indicating you are going to press ahead with fuel duty increases, even though rising oil prices mean pump prices have today reached a record high.

‘How can you press ahead when petrol prices are 4p higher than in last year’s budget?

‘What’s happened to the stabiliser? Or isn’t the truth you can’t do the right thing on child benefit or tax credits or fuel because your plans have failed?

‘A year ago you said in the budget you would ‘put fuel into the tank of the British economy’.
‘The fact is it’s the economy which has tanked, on the hard shoulder, and this Chancellor is the one who has run out of fuel.’

But Mr Osborne said: ‘There’s an inconvenient truth which is the fuel duty rises you are referring to are the ones put in place by Labour, that you voted for and anyone who was in the last parliament voted for.

‘That is the unbelievable opportunism of the Labour Party today.’

Turning on Mr Balls he said: ‘One month it’s VAT, another month it’s child tax credits, now it’s fuel.
‘You are like a pinball machine bouncing all over the place. You don’t have a credible economic policy.’

Daily Mail