HOUSE OF COMMONS LONDON SW1A 0AA The Rt Hon Jeremy Hunt MP Chancellor of the Exchequer HM Treasury 1 Horse Guards Road London SW1A 2HQ 1 March 2023 Dear Jeremy, Fuel Duty and Spring Budget 2023 We welcome the engagement you have had with us already on the budget and on the future of fuel duty rates. As you are considering and finalising the measures and decisions for the Spring Budget on 15 March 2023, we strongly encourage you to take action to support hard-pressed motorists, families and businesses by freezing or cutting fuel duty. Doing so would provide an enormous relief and much-needed certainty at a time when costs have risen considerably. Moreover, given the impact that fuel costs have on prices more widely in the economy, a freeze or reduction will help the Government to meet its priorities this year to halve inflation and to grow the economy. Since 2010 Conservatives have had a proud track record in freezing and reducing fuel duty to support economic growth and jobs creation. In 1997, fuel duty was 36.86 pence per litre and by 2010 it had risen 55% under the then Labour Government to 57.19 pence per litre, with plans they implemented that then took it to 58.95 pence per litre in 2011. Labour had also pledged to hike it up further by one pence per litre above indexation in future years. We – and the Government you were a part of – took a different approach. To support motorists and the economy fuel duties were cut by a penny per litre in 2011, then frozen in successive years, before being cut by 5 pence per litre last year. As a result, motorists have been saving money every time they fill up their tanks compared to the trajectory and plans we inherited from Labour. Over the last 13 years families would have been able to keep thousands of pounds more of their hard-earned money, while businesses will have had more cash to invest in jobs and growth or to cover other costs. Research from Cebr and commissioned by FairFuelUK has found that the fuel duty freeze since 2011 has kept costs down in the economy and boosted household expenditure by £24 billion. It has been one of our most successful fiscal policies and presents a clear dividing line between our Conservative approach to taxation, and the Labour Party, who continue to see motorists as cash cows. However, as the Budget approaches, the nation’s motorists are concerned that fuel duty could rise again. The Office for Budget Responsibility’s November 2022 Economic Outlook and Forecast stated: “The planned 23 per cent increase in the fuel duty rate in late-March 2023, which adds £5.7 billon to receipts next year. This would be a record cash increase, and the first time any Government has raised fuel duty rates in cash terms since 1 January 2011. It is expected to raise the price of petrol and diesel by around 12 pence a litre.”
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