Thirty-seven million disappointed motorists. If, like me, you were expecting the 5p per litre cut or even a more significant cut.
Whilst appreciating that government revenue has to come from somewhere, fuel prices always seem to be an obvious source.
Of course, it is not the government’s fault that fuel prices are so erratic, with international events seriously impacting.
Retail fuel prices are mainly affected by crude oil prices and the amount of oil available to meet demand.
The RAC have a different take on things.
They recognise that the average petrol and diesel prices stood at 144.4 and 154.6 pence per litre in May 2023, down from 165.9 and 179.7 pence per litre in May 2022.
However, their data clearly shows the supermarkets, like all fuel retailers, benefit from lower wholesale costs but aren’t passing these savings on to their forecourt customers.
They cite an example of an independently run garage in Shropshire charging 140.9p for petrol, nearly 14p less than the UK average.
This is all made worse because fuel duty is currently being discounted by 5p a litre to ease the burden on drivers in the cost-of-living crisis, a duty cut that drivers simply aren’t benefitting from.
But is that reason enough for Mr Hunt to ignore fuel duty rate changes?
Poor Mr Hunt is trying to balance a potential Election result against a Cash Cow.
