Chancellor’s 5p freeze will save £60 a year for well-off motorists compared with just £22 for lower earners
Retaining the fuel duty cut in the budget is a regressive policy that benefits the wealthiest in society, who will save £60 a year, while those who earn the least will save just £22, according to analysis.
Jeremy Hunt on Wednesday announced an extension of the 5p cut in fuel duty brought in during 2022, for which he has won plaudits across the rightwing press.
Continue reading...Federal government also confirms pension and jobseeker will rise 4% in line with consumer price index, as parliament returns
The federal treasurer, Jim Chalmers, has asked the competition watchdog to crack down hard on any price gouging when the petrol excise cut expires at the end of September.
The letter to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, released on Monday, confirms the government’s intention to reintroduce “the full excise” on 29 September. It was halved for six months in the March budget.
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Continue reading...Slow-driving convoy caused long delays to those heading to Devon and Cornwall on the first day of the school holidays
Protesters campaigning against high fuel prices have disrupted holiday getaways to the south-west of England by driving in convoy slowly up and down a motorway before blockading a petrol station.
The convoy drove at 30mph on three lanes of the M5 north and south in Somerset and the Bristol area on Friday morning as tens of thousands of people headed to Devon and Cornwall to begin summer breaks.
Continue reading...Court of appeal judges have rejected a last-ditch legal bid to block a flight due to relocate asylum seekers to Rwanda on Tuesday
Q: Your Northern Ireland protocol plan is holed below the water line because it has so much opposition in your party, isn’t it?
Johnson says the government needs to resolve the problems with the protocol.
Continue reading...Reluctant to make big fiscal changes, chancellor Rishi Sunak considers tax adjustments and fuel duty cut
The Treasury has drawn up a range of options to help with the cost of living crisis – including a 1p cut to income tax, raising the national insurance threshold and a significant cut to fuel duty.
But government sources said Rishi Sunak, the chancellor, was still reluctant to make big fiscal changes.
Continue reading...Chancellor believed to be considering cut in fuel duty among measures to tackle cost of living crisis
Rishi Sunak has promised that tax increases are “done”, as he dropped a heavy hint that he is preparing measures to tackle the rising cost of living in next week’s spring statement.
The Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) said this week that Sunak had announced more tax rises in two years – worth 2% of GDP – than Gordon Brown did in a decade.
Continue reading...New petrol and diesel cars will be banned in the UK from 2030, and sales of electric vehicles are rising fast. But with drivers reliant on charging points how practical is the greener option? One writer finds out
Range anxiety hits hard on the A9 in the Highlands of Scotland. For the uninitiated, this is the fear that an electric vehicle (EV) won’t reach its destination before running out of power. I’m driving through some of Britain’s loveliest landscape – mountains, rivers, lochs and firths – but I hardly notice. I’m focused hard – on the road in front, but mainly on two numbers on the dashboard. One is how far it is in miles to where I’m going; the other is the range in miles remaining in the battery. Sometimes, especially on downhill stretches when what is known as “regenerative braking” means the battery is getting charged, I tell myself it’s going to be OK, I’ll make it. But going uphill the range plummets. Squeaky bum time.
Plus, I’ve read Michel Faber’s Under the Skin. I know what happens to men stranded on the A9. To range anxiety add the fear of being processed and eaten by aliens.
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