In approaching this Budget the focus of the Countryside Alliance has been on addressing the ‘rural premium’: the added costs that residents must pay by virtue of living in a rural area. This is a key challenge to rural Britain and reflects the reality of our members’ and supporters’ daily lives.
In support of that objective the Alliance made three key requests of the Chancellor ahead of the Budget:
We also asked for investment in upgrading the rural electricity grid.
We warmly welcome the Chancellor’s decision to maintain the freeze on fuel duty. As we raised with her in advance, our research has found that rural households spend almost £800 a year more on fuel than people who live in urban areas, paying up to 6p per litre more for petrol. Hiking fuel duty would only have increased the financial pressure on working people living in rural communities.
In the longer term, we expect the Treasury to seek new means of taxing private transport given the shortfall in fuel duty that will arise from the decline in internal combustion engine cars on the road. Any road pricing system must account for the need of people in rural areas to take more and longer journeys.
We regret that the Chancellor has not taken up our suggestion to use powers returned to the UK following our departure from the EU to reduce the VAT rate on domestic heating oil to zero.
We have long stood up for rural pubs owing to their special importance within smaller communities. As such we welcome the cut in beer duty by 1p per pint, but would have preferred to see similar relief applied to non-draught products, whose duty will rise in line with the Retail Prices Index (RPI).
It is disappointing that the government continues with its intention to restrict eligibility for the Winter Fuel Payment by the means announced in July. Withdrawing a benefit intended to help meet heating costs for all pensioners not qualifying for income-related benefits, without reference to elevated rural heating costs, risks exacerbating the rural premium.
In our briefing note, we highlight our position on the announcements made about fuel duty, access to rural transport, domestic heating fuel, alcohol duty, winter fuel payments, and other budget measures.