The UK Government is to be asked to intervene as the price of fuel spirals ever higher.
ABC Council is to write and demand action be taken to curb the costs and the impact of VAT upon the hard-working public.
It will do so ahead of Chancellor John Healey’s autumn budget at the end of October, in the hope that his famous Red Box will not become a Pandora’s Box poised to free fresh fiscal hell.
It was Alliance Councillor Robbie Alexander who stressed the urgency for ABC Council to act.
Speaking at council’s September monthly meeting, he said everyone was currently facing a “cost of living crisis”.
“Prices are going up every single day on pretty much everything that we buy,” said Councillor Alexander. “But fuel in recent months has seemed to explode in price at the pumps and we’ve seen diesel go past £2 a litre recently.
“We have a budget coming up and my ask is very, very simple. We need to ask the UK Government, we need to write to the Chancellor and to the UK Treasury to find a way to reduce the stress.
“I’d be proposing that we write and ask for a cut to fuel duty and potentially for them to look at the VAT rates on fuel because those prices go up. The UK Treasury take in more revenue through VAT and that needs to be put back into the pockets off motorists.”
Turning to the very real impact such rates of VAT and rising costs have, he added: “We rely on a lot of people, particularly in our health and social care sectors, who are in their cars every single day, and these are the people who are on, to be honest, wages that are lower than they should be already, and then we’re asking them to dig into their pockets and drive around all day and fuel prices are just too high at the minute.
“I would ask that we write to the UK Government and ask for something to be done in the upcoming budget.”
DUP Councillor Kyle Moutray seconded such a move, one which he described as “worthwhile”.
He said people he interacted with on a day-to-day basis were “feeling this at the minute, with the cost of fuel rising, on a weekly basis”.
“It’s unprecedented,” added Councillor Moutray. “I think it is important to note the distinction that whenever people pay at the pump, nearly half of that goes directly to the Government in tax, which is unprecedented in itself. When you look at other countries, that is not the case. We seem to really be a leading nation in that.
“It’s important to note that fuel duty will actually increase in January, I believe, and then again in March 2027.
“So that’s an increase from the Labour government, two increases when working families are already struggling so much with their weekly and monthly bills.
“I hear it time and time again, particularly from younger families; they’re working hard and they’ve less and less to show for it at the end of the month.
“If Labour really wanted to help working people – I know Andy Burnham puts up that pretence that he’s for the working man – my advice would be stop piling tax on to the cost of getting to work, visiting family, dropping kids off at school. Stop that.”
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