Latest figures from the AA show that drivers in the UK are being subjected to petrol tax increases far in excess of anything endured across Europe.
This hits places like Argyll, with all of the Highlands and Islands, particularly hard in the sheer volume of deriving that living here necessitates.
Apart from the personal driving to support home and family life, there are delivery businesses, hauliers and ferry operators, all utterly central to life in territories like ours and all unavoidably heavy fuel users.
High fuel tax also impacts on one of the great attractions of Scotland for visitors – driving Scotland. Much of the country is only accessible by road and a decline in driving visitors has an obvious secondary impact on the businesses of the accommodation, hospitality and visitor attraction sectors – and the ferries.
This is why the SNP has been calling for the establishment of a fuel tax regulator, an urgent need underlined y Argyll’s MSP, Jim Mather, following concerns raised by his Westminster colleague Angus MacNeil MP, in a statement issued in London earlier today.
Mr Mather says: ‘For most Scottish MPs and MSPs the price of petrol and diesel impacts very directly on their constituents’ day to day living. Every rise in the cost of fuel impacts upon the costs of goods and services and makes the export of local produce that much less competitive.
‘Angus MacNeil has very properly highlighted the disparity that exists between the fuel tax regimes in the UK compared with other mainstream European countries.
‘Since the Pre-Budget Report at the end of November 2008, fuel duty and VAT on petrol in the UK has risen by 11.46%. In the same period the rise in Austria was 2.23% and the average increase over 10 countries, including France, Spain and the Netherlands is 5.07%. None of those countries are, like the UK, major oil producers. Figures for diesel are only marginally less damaging.
‘It is common knowledge that the Labour Government is intent on using fuel tax as a means of raising finance to pay off the bank bail out. They are keen to characterise this as taxing hauliers but the truth of the matter is that it is ordinary people who are left to pick up the increased fuel bills, directly and indirectly in the higher costs of goods and services.’
The SNP has committed itself to a continuing campaign at Budget time for a fuel duty regulator to ensure a fairer and more equitable system for Scotland’s remoter areas.
Jim Mather says: ‘Scotland should be benefiting from the riches of our offshore resources rather than watching it being used to fill the massive deficit at the Treasury at a time when the Scottish Budget is reduced even further.’
In a way, the recession is having an interesting push-me-pull-you impact on responses to the issue of independence for Scotland.
On the one hand, it has frightened some into thinking that the only thing to do is to cling faster to the breast of the UK.
On the other, there is a growing awareness that what could be seen as the wilful prolonging of national infantilism will lead to an increasingly thinner diet as scarce resources are withdrawn to maintain the vigour of the parent.
This view consequently suggests that abandoning the breast and foraging for itself will see Scotland grow to vigorous adulthood – and is based on the unarguable truth that hard times are here either way.
It will be interesting to see how this plays out. Even Scotland is infected with the British disease of ‘hanging on to nurse for fear of something worse’.
Letting the metaphor run away with us would picture a nurse who has been on the economic equivalent of a bad coke habit, is in long-tern rehab and unfit to nourish.
An increase in fuel tax is not the same as the total amount of fuel tax. Are we paying the highest prices overall?
I’m going to be contrary, and say that it’s not all bad. The price may be high, but it doesn’t change fast. In other countries without high fuel taxes, the cost of road fuel can be surprisingly variable.
It also moderates the worst (though not all) driving behaviour. Most people are driving more slowly, and I witness fewer witless overtaking manoeuvres and excessive speed than I used to.
And we have to remember that carbon fuels aren’t just magic water that push our cars around, as many people seem to think. They’re serious pollutants. Compared to the costs of the damage they do (and may do in the future) you can convincingly argue that they’re still far too cheap.
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Nobody even pretends that our fuel prices have anything to do with Clean and Green but are simply a device used by the government to separate motorists from their money.
Surely you do not think the UK government’s excessive take on fuel has anything to do with being the ecologiocal leaders of Europe?
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Fuel tax is a consumption tax the same way tobacco and alcohol taxes are. No doubt the revenue is useful, especially given the hostility towards income taxes in this country.
And no, I’m not claiming the current government are in any way environmental champions. But that is the stated purpose of the tax.
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They lie to us……..
For those who have options the price of fuel and the taxation it attracts may be a consumption tax but, if you live where public transport is sporadic at best and where a car is a necessity for living a tolerable lifestyle, for securing food and services -even tobacco and alcohol if these are your choices -then you will be hammered.
It is at the end of the supply line, where the base price is highest and the benefits of bulk delivery do not apply that the tax and then the VAT hits hardest and that is why some form of regulation should be considered.
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I don’t disagree about the regulation. It’s always struck me as absurd that fuel prices are so much higher in the country. It seems to me that tiny–fractions of a penny–increases in urban prices would allow rural prices to be reduced to the same level, with no loss of profit for anyone.
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