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Fuel duty cut won't be seen at the pumps

Chancellor’s promised 1p fuel duty cut "to be wiped out within a month."

fuel duty

By Tom Phillips

25th March 2011

Fuel prices have fallen since Chancellor George Osbourne delivered his Budget, but not by the penny promised in Wednesday’s announcement.

That’s the finding of a survey by Experian Catalist, which monitored fuel prices between Wednesday evening at 18:00, when the fuel duty cut began, and Thursday, finding that the average reduction was 0.6p.

The survey found that the average cost of a litre of unleaded fell from £1.33.5p to £1.32.9p, while diesel fell from £1.40.3p to £1.39.7p.

According to the Retail Motor Industry Federation (RMI), fuel stations will have hedged their bets against cut in duty and bought in fuel ahead of the Budget announcement. Stations are not obliged to implement the reduction until fuel bought before Wednesday is sold out.  

The 1p duty cut is likely to disappear almost unnoticed at the pumps. A spokesman for the AA said: “With price increases such as those we’ve seen over the past six months, the penny-off duty is likely to get swallowed up by next month anyway. 

Despite the freeze, more than 80p in the price of every litre of fuel goes directly to the Treasury, so the Government is already taking more than its fair share from drivers.”

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1 Comment

Fuel Duty Cut

The 1p cut, or 5p depending how you arrive at what you've actually saved, depending on what was due in April [life is SO confusing] made great headlines for the following day's newspapers but, let's be honest, doesn't mean a thing. There was an increase the day before [oil companies work on a just-in-case principle] then it takes a few days for the new supplies to actually get to the service stations[unlike when it goes up, that's immediate]so we can expect any cut about August or September. I'm as cynical as the next man, but we motorists are being taken for mugs, yet again. It's not like we can avoid buying fuel to teach them a lesson in not treating us like fools. I've not noticed any real difference in the number of cars on the road since fuel started increasing in price almost daily. We're addicted to using petrol or diesel so we might as well just grin and bear it. It's never going to be cheap again and the 80p that the Treasury gets off every litre must represent the pain that, according to the Government, we must all share.

By n50pap on 28 March, 2011, 9:12am

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