Calls for fuel duty rise delay

Road user groups have called on the Government to defer plans to increase fuel duty next spring as petrol prices rise.

Average petrol prices have passed the £1 a litre mark for the first time in the wake of rising world oil prices and the extra 2p on fuel duty imposed this autumn.

The Government is committed to a further 2p fuel duty rise next April, and the same again a year later.

Of the £1 that drivers, on average, are now paying for a litre of petrol, around 15p is composed of VAT, just over 50p is Government tax and just under 35p is the non-tax cost.

AA head of road safety Andrew Howard said: "Every time the price of fuel goes up, the Government gets 17.5 per cent of the rise in the form of VAT.

"With prices rising steadily this year, this means the Government has already got nearly 2p extra in VAT in 2007 and therefore could afford to defer the April 2008 duty increase."

But Mr Howard said there is no sign that motorists would support the sort of fuel protests that led to chaos in autumn 2000.

"I have not heard of any likely fuel protest and I don't think the general public would support one. They would not be too keen if a blockade of fuel depots meant they could not get any petrol and they could not, for instance, take their children to school or visit elderly relatives."

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