Budget 2024: Alliance calls on Rachel Reeves not to hike fuel duty

Rural drivers would suffer a “hammer blow” if Rachel Reeves hikes fuel duty in the Budget, Tim Bonner, Chief Executive of the Countryside Alliance has warned.

Research shows rural drivers spend almost £800 more each year on petrol than those in urban areas, owing to longer drives to carry out essential everyday activities and a lack of reliable public transport.

Ahead of the budget on Wednesday 30 October, Mr Bonner has, on behalf of Countryside Alliance members and supporters, written to the Chancellor of the Exchequer demanding pump levies are frozen and the 5p cut remains in place.

In his letter, Mr Bonner argues: “Pressure on rural communities’ finances remains, and so we would argue that now is not the time to let the cut lapse.”

Fuel duty has been frozen since 2011 and at the weekend, the Countryside Alliance joined up to The Sun’s ‘Keep it Down’ campaign, which calls for another year of held rates.  

Speaking to The Sun on Saturday 26 October, Mr Bonner added: “Cars are an absolute lifeline for rural communities.

“The Government needs to spare a thought for people outside cities who can’t rely on public transport, which in many cases isn’t even an option.

“A fuel duty hike would be a hammer blow at a time when many rural people are already struggling”

Ms Reeves is under pressure to honour her pledge to protect “working people” who use their cars to travel to work every day.

The call from the Countryside Alliance to maintain the current fuel duty rate forms part of our efforts to highlight the ‘rural premium’: the added costs people must pay simply for living in a rural area.

Our letter asked the Chancellor to confirm that any future model for road pricing – made necessary by falls in fuel duty revenue as a result of drivers eventually switching to electric vehicles – would take account of the extra miles people living in rural areas must drive. Currently that is the main reason why rural communities face added transport costs. Done properly, an eventual shift to road pricing will create the opportunity to address this unfairness.

Another key request our letter made of the Chancellor to combat the rural premium was to reduce the VAT rate on domestic heating fuel to zero, using powers returned to the UK following EU withdrawal.

To our letter to the Chancellor in full, click here.