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palace-530055_1920Cycling UK says government’s Spring Statement is a “sticking plaster for the problems we face today”
Charity Cycling UK has criticised the government’s Spring Statement, unveiled by Chancellor Rishi Sunak in the House of Commons today, describing it as “a sticking plaster for the problems we face today”.
Along with raising the threshold at which people start paying National Insurance and pledging to cut the basic rate of income tax before the next general election, the Chancellor announced that he will cut fuel duty by 5p per litre until March 2023, to deal with the rising prices at the pumps.
However, Cycling UK’s head of campaigns Duncan Dollimore says he is disappointed that the Chancellor did not unveil a more “progressive” Spring Statement which focused on alternative, sustainable forms of transport such as cycling, walking and public transport.
“The cost of living crisis has brought the lack of transport alternatives apart from the car into sharp relief, with people paying the penalty at the pump,” Dollimore said.
“The Chancellor’s spring statement shows lessons have not been learned from the past or our current situation, and demonstrates little vision on how to solve our transport problems.
“Now’s the time to plan for the future, to invest in our towns and cities in ways which will unlock our car dependency."
He continued: “Cars have their place, but when 68 percent of journeys under five miles are currently driven – distances easily cycled or in some cases walked – it’s clear there has been a failure to provide suitable transport alternatives.
“A progressive spring statement would have invested in cycling, walking and public transport for the future and not been a sticking plaster for the problems we face today.”
Ryan joined road.cc in December 2021 and since then has kept the site’s readers and listeners informed and enthralled (well at least occasionally) on news, the live blog, and the road.cc Podcast. After boarding a wrong bus at the world championships and ruining a good pair of jeans at the cyclocross, he now serves as road.cc’s senior news writer. Before his foray into cycling journalism, he wallowed in the equally pitiless world of academia, where he wrote a book about Victorian politics and droned on about cycling and bikes to classes of bored students (while taking every chance he could get to talk about cycling in print or on the radio). He can be found riding his bike very slowly around the narrow, scenic country lanes of Co. Down.
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19 comments
The people around where I live that the fuel duty cut will benefit the most are those who are driving around in their gas guzzling Range Rovers etc. They are the ones who can actually afford rising prices. The people who won't benefit at all are the poorest who don't run car - the ones most hit by rising prices. In the meantime what does this do to encourage people to actually stop using their car and use either active travel or public transport, thus reducing our dependence on fossil fuels and our impact on global warming? NOTHING!
https://newsthump.com/2022/03/23/oil-companies-to-respect-5p-fuel-duty-c...
https://twitter.com/popdeath/status/1506880841313660929
The Anglia news ran a story, literally as the Russinas were marching into Ukraine, about a bunch of gammons objecting to a solar farm near Newmarket. No suggestion that the invasion of Ukraine and the subsequent issues with oil and gas highlighted the need to reduce our dependence on these global markets. Can somebody in the msm please join the dots.
Or another one:
Obsequious lickspittle fawns over government for giving him back 5p on petrol that has gone up 40p in a year
https://newsthump.com/2022/03/23/obsequious-lickspittle-fawns-over-gover...
The very last line made me chuckle
“They’re robbing you and getting you to thank them for it – a bit like Robin Hood, if he was a c**t.”
its a pretty piss poor statement.
If they were serious about doing something about the cost of fossil fuels to tackle the cost of living crisis they should have targeted the energy market not the petrol one. Not a great fan of making it easier to consume fossil fuels but underwriting gas or electricity costs would have benefited the poor more and been less carbon damaging than fuel duty.
If they must do fuel then they should have focused on train and bus fuel taxation.
They could just listen to the protestors and Insulate Britain.
In fact if they'd started this process when they should have then we'd be a lot better off now.
I don't recall where I saw it but I think I read that if Supermarkets were to get rid of all the open fronted refrigerators then we could save 2% of the countries electricity demand.
Duncan Dollimore is right of course, if somewhat more restrained than I would be. When we have numerous crises developing at the same time, all needing very urgent attention and suitable policies, it beggars belief that the government ignores them and indeed, makes them worse. The obvious thing to have done with transport is to at least maintain fuel duty, if not increase it, and take all the money from the roads programme and spend it on alternatives to the private car, but this government is beholden to oil and car companies, so does the opposite, short term, populist thing.
I've said it before, and I'll doubtless say it again; this is the worst government in my lifetime of 70 years, and just one little example is that they are using whatsapp to conduct government business, that gets automatically deleted, so there's no way for us plebs to check on what they're doing. https://www.foxglove.org.uk/2022/03/22/1st-day-in-court-whatsapp-deletio...
I can't remember when any budget made me as angry as this one. Sunak talked about global challenges but clearly he doesn't believe the climate crisis to be one of them.
So he knocked £2.50 of a tank of fuel. If anybody wants to save £2.50 off their fuel bill I would suggest converting 15 car miles to 15 active travel miles. You've saved money and you'll feel better for the fresh air and exercise.
I read an article which said that knocking 5p off the litre price of fuel, if passed on, would roughly put the price back to what it was last week...
Problem is: Sunak is a millionnaire in his own right, married to a billionaire who is one of a whole family of billionaires. Not convinced he actually understands what happens with 'money'.
I'm sure that's just coincidental, an accident: I can't believe that any legitimate democratic western Govt would want to hide all of its decision-making from 'history'...
Here's IEA's 10 point plan to reduce oil usage (https://www.iea.org/reports/a-10-point-plan-to-cut-oil-use) including ideas such as car-free Sundays.
Meanwhile, reducing fuel duty by 5p may not have any impact at the fuel pump, unless oil companies decide to pass on the saving (and they have a significant financial reason to not do so - remember that Shell bought up cheap Russian oil to enhance their sizable profits). If I were cynical, I'd consider this a way of transferring tax money into the pockets of oil companies.
I am cynical, and I do.
If the 5p is not passed on immediately and in full that would be a strong indication that the market was not operating competitively, and warranted government intervention to force prices down to simulate open competition.
Seems like it's being passed on in full in a lot of places.
6p - there is 20% VAT on fuel duty.
Well since passing two fuel stations out with the dog today.... both of which the price of fuel is 1p per litre more than what it was yesterday lunch time..... so in my view it's not operating competitively
The media are already starting to push back and twist the iea plans which then just stifles debate.
Like many other places MK proposed reducing speed limits in residential streets 2 years ago. Obviously very little has been done since then but surely we have the perfect opportunity to reduce speed limits now.
You don't have to be cynical. It will be designed to be popular with drivers of all persuasions - getting their vote at the next election is more important than the climate crisis, air pollution and road safety combined.
It also takes much-needed money from public coffers at a time when it is most obviously needed - strained by the pandemic, the daylight robbery performed by government ministers and their cabal over PPE and test & trace, when the cost of living, and particularly the price of domestic energy, is climbing at an alarming rate.
Fuel duty on petrol and diesel was 57.95p before the 5p cut yet there were as many cars on my local roads as usual. None of us wants to pay more tax than we have to, not even when it's for the damaging fossil fuels that power our selfish gas-guzzling vehicles, but this move is a political gesture and solves nothing.
Edit: some interesting numbers (but not in a good way) in this thread by railway engineer Gareth Dennis, who says it is "catastrophic, and is a tax cut for the rich. It is one of the most regressive tax policies in decades."
https://twitter.com/GarethDennis/status/1506615136735404037