A 3p increase in fuel duty is to be phased in between April and January 2011. The tax will be increased by a penny in April, a further penny in October and a final penny in January 2011, by which time the Chancellor expect inflation to be at 2 per cent.
The average price of a litre of petrol in Britain is currently £1.17, but petrol prices are predicted to rise to as high a level as £1.24 per litre in the coming weeks
ETA opinion: Petrol duty and the environment
At present, fuel duty makes up more than two thirds of the total cost of petrol. The cost of climate change is already met via fuel duty and the extra VAT on fuel duty – way above the rate for climate change damage itself.
Motorists know this to be unfair and as environmentalists we have to find a convincing story as to why motorists should pay generous amounts for climate change damage but home owners do not. And we cannot get away with saying that motorists have a choice to use buses or cycle but home owners have no choice but to live in a house. Rightly or wrongly most motorists would consider that the alternative of using a bus rather than a car is like living in a tent rather than a house – we’ll have to do better than that.
National road pricing would be fairer and more efficient for not only would it cut congestion, it would save many motorists money as would no longer be any need for fuel duty or vehicle excise duty.
When we pay as much tax on the carbon dioxide we produce heating our houses as the tax on the carbon dioxide we produce driving our cars or travelling by train or bus, then we will be getting somewhere. When taxes are seen to be fair people are generally willing to pay more.
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