Next UK Prime Minister Urged to Slash Fuel Duty Amid Soaring Inflation

The inboxes of the UK’s two Conservative Party leadership candidates have been flooded with e-petitions urging them to slash the fuel duty immediately by 25 pence per litre, according to FairFuelUK.
Manufacturing has been hit by waning customer demand and shortages of labour and input, and the Bank of England’s forecast states that the UK is set to go into recession in the third quarter and won’t see economic growth for another year.
Speaking to The Epoch Times on Aug. 24, Howard Cox, cofounder of FairFuelUK, said lower fuel prices will reduce inflation and boost consumer spending and that “therefore the economy would benefit.”
More importantly, he said, cutting fuel duty would reduce the “huge fuel costs” for small businesses, the haulage industry, and the internet economy, which he said is a “distribution economy.”
Cox also said members of the Road Haulage Association, the main backer of his campaign, are “suffering considerably” over rocketing fuel prices because “suddenly half their costs are fuel costs, and then half of those costs are going to the government in tax.”
RAC stated that it means drivers have to spend about £12 more to fill a 55-litre family car with petrol or £17 more with diesel in the UK than in France.
“No one understands when oil prices change,” he said.
What we do know, Cox said, is that pump prices “go up like a rocket” immediately when wholesale prices go up, no matter how much oil there is in stock that was purchased before the price rise, but when wholesale prices go back down, pump prices “come down like a feather.”
Cox said the UK does have regulatory bodies for energy and communications markets and that drivers also need a price regulatory body. It could regulate prices at the pump and publish daily figures on how much fuel prices should be by calculating wholesale prices, refinery costs, distribution costs, taxation costs, and currency exchange rates.
In an email to The Epoch Times, a government spokesperson said: “Through our £37 billion support package we have introduced our biggest ever cut to fuel duty, saving the average UK car driver around £100, van driver around £200, and HGV over £1,500. This is in addition to saving the typical employee over £330 a year through our National Insurance cut and allowing people on Universal Credit to keep £1,000 more of what they earn.
“The Competition and Markets Authority has launched a Market Study into the supply of road fuel in the UK to consider what more can be done to ensure prices at the pumps are fair.”
Truss and Sunak didn’t respond to requests for comment by press time.