The line of duty
Road Rage , Issue 1671 Hedgehog writes...
NIGEL FARAGE and other MPs who reacted to the surge in oil prices by criticising the government's planned increase in fuel duty presumably haven't noticed that ministers don't control pump prices.

When the Tories cut fuel duty for a year by 5p per litre in 2022, petrol and diesel prices didn't drop by anything like 5p per litre. Instead, suppliers fattened their profit margins (Eye 1634). Prices are whatever the market will bear, but the Tory and Labour governments continued the 5p cut all the same.

Deep freeze
Fuel duty has been frozen since 2010-11 – a huge real-terms drop even without the 5p cut. The total cost to the Treasury is £120bn of lost revenue which could otherwise have provided cost-of-living help where the government does have levers to pull, including on public transport.

For this year, chancellor Rachel Reeves chose to freeze rail fares, retain the £3 bus fare cap in England and end the temporary 5p fuel duty cut in September, to be followed by fuel duty rising in step with inflation.

When war in the Middle East pushed up crude oil prices this month, pump prices soon increased for fuel that was traded at the previous low prices – all down to market pricing and beyond the government's control.

The Tories, Reform UK and Liberal Democrats said the 5p cut must continue from September, as if that would make a difference to pump prices now.

In her last budget, Reeves summoned up the courage to announce a 3p per mile charge from 2028 for electric cars, which escape fuel duty and incur only 5 percent VAT on cheap electricity for home recharging.

Distance learning
For more than 20 years, Labour, Tory-Lib Dem coalition and Tory governments avoided the logic of replacing fuel duty with per-mile charges (Eyes passim). Had they grasped that nettle, Reeves (and possibly her Scottish and Welsh counterparts) would have a way to influence day-to-day motoring costs, eg a targeted short-term cut in the per-mile rate to offset a spike in petrol and diesel prices.

There'd be endless scope for arguments over fair charging, but at least politicians would be debating actual government interventions, rather than flinging billions of pounds more into the oil supply morass without certainty of the outcome.