Earlier today Rishi Sunak announced the traditional ‘Spring Statement’ in Parliament, and the item of interest for drivers is that from 6pm tonight (23rd March 2022) the tax that we pay on fuel, aka fuel duty, will be reduced by 5p per litre for a period of 12 months.
It’s not a lot, but it’s something. And it might mean that retailers use it along with other opportunities to drop the price of fuel further. That’s what we hope anyway. There is always the risk that greed will set in and some retailers will just see it as a windfall for them and fail to pass the real savings along. We will soon find out.
The slightly ironic thing is that fuel duty has actually been on the verge of increases for the past few years. Almost every Spring Statement and Autumn Budget featured the words ‘We have delayed the fuel duty increase’ as the Government tried to make it sound like they were treating us. But since the huge increases in fuel prices this year, they can afford to reduce the rate of the duty, and still make as much money from sales as they were previously.