Fuel duty tax could rise to help balance the books, Chancellor warns

Fuel duty could rise ‘sharply’ next year to help balance the books, Chancellor warns, ending a 12-year freeze on the tax

  • Fuel duty may rise sharply next year to help balance the books, Chancellor said
  • Jeremy Hunt said UK finances mean fuel duty freeze can’t be extended forever 

Fuel duty may have to rise sharply next year to help balance the books, the Chancellor warned yesterday.

Jeremy Hunt said the state of the UK’s finances meant a freeze in fuel duty since 2011 could not be extended indefinitely.

Mr Hunt cancelled a planned 7p rise in this month’s Budget, and extended a ‘temporary’ 5p cut for another 12 months.

Harriet Baldwin, Tory chairman of the Commons Treasury committee, said she was ‘very sceptical’ that any increase would be imposed in the run-up to a general election.

But Mr Hunt said it did not look possible to freeze duty again.

Jeremy Hunt (pictured today) said the state of the UK’s finances meant a freeze in fuel duty since 2011 could not be extended indefinitely

Harriet Baldwin, Tory chairman of the Commons Treasury committee (pictured today), said she was ‘very sceptical’ that any increase would be imposed in the run-up to a general election

He said: ‘We cannot afford to make that change permanent. It has just not been an option.’

Howard Cox, of Fair Fuel UK, warned that raising fuel duty before an election would play badly at the polls.

Mr Cox said: ‘It is staggering that the Chancellor still does not get it. Hiking tax on an essential resource that is also the commercial heartbeat of the economy will be political suicide in the year of a general election.’

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