Fuel Duty

Joe Robertson Excerpts

Wednesday 18th March 2026 Commons Chamber

[Harriet Cross (Gordon and Buchan) (Con)]

It is great to be able to speak today in this important debate. I am glad that this is one of the topics that the official Opposition, led by the Leader of the Opposition, have brought to the House, because fuel duty impacts everybody. It impacts every family, every household, every business, hauliers—everywhere we go, everything that we see is impacted by fuel duty, and that is no more obvious than in rural areas.

People in our rural communities rely on cars more than anywhere else. We cannot rely on buses, because they are not reliable. We cannot rely on trains, because half of the time they are not there. We cannot rely on tubes, because we do not have any near us. Cars are the lifeblood of rural communities. We would be stuck without them, and therefore they are vital. The majority of the public know that too. There are 36 million petrol and diesel vehicles in the UK, and every single one of them will be taxed when fuel duty goes up. Fuel duty is a tax on every single vehicle, and all those vehicles are driven by somebody, so this is a tax on everybody.

Rural communities will feel this change so much more because they are so much larger. The best way to demonstrate that is to compare the size of constituencies. My constituency in Aberdeenshire in north-east Scotland is large; it is nowhere near the largest Scottish constituency, but it covers 2,076 sq km. That is larger than the combined total of the constituencies of Treasury and Transport Ministers multiplied by three. Indeed, if the large constituency of the Under-Secretary of State for Transport, the hon. Member for Selby (Keir Mather), is removed from that equation, the total combined constituency area of the Treasury and Transport ministerial teams is 380 sq km. I assume, therefore, that it is no coincidence that they do not appreciate how important cars are for getting around large constituencies and how much increasing fuel duty will impact rural constituents.

While distance is important, price is also vital. The “Fuel Finder” tool that has been created is helpful, not least because it tells me that in my constituency fuel is on average 147p per litre, compared with 139p per litre in the constituency of the Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasury. We are already paying more in rural constituencies, and we already have to drive our cars further, so we are filling up our cars more often and at a higher price. Fuel duty rises impact us more than those living in urban areas.

This is a point I keep coming back to, but rural communities do not have a choice—we have to drive. We have to drive to get to work, to get children to school, to go to doctors appointments. To use an example, my constituency has seen many bank closures, meaning that constituents in Ellon have to drive to Inverurie in order to bank. That is a 28-mile round trip—just to bank. That distance is further than the breadth of many Members’ constituencies, east to west or north to south.

It is not just fuel duty that the Government are targeting. At the Budget they announced their new 3p per mile charge for electric vehicles. Constituents of mine who live in Huntly and commute to Aberdeen to work, often in the oil and gas sector, travel 17,800 miles a year—based on their working five days a week, 46 weeks a year—just to get to work. The pay-per-mile system that the Government have brought in will mean that those constituents pay £535 a year just to get to work in their electric car. Perhaps Treasury Ministers cannot imagine having to do a 77-mile round trip to get to work, but that is what my constituents do and they are being penalised for it.

When the Treasury Front Bencher winds up, I would be grateful for confirmation that pay-per-mile for electric vehicles will not be a gateway to pay-per-mile for petrol and diesel vehicles. That would cripple rural communities, rural families, and rural businesses. It is a slippery slope that the Government have started on with EVs, and if the system progresses to cover petrol and diesel vehicles, it will be a hell of a lot worse for a lot of people.

We all know that supply is just as important as price, if not more important; we have been talking about it a huge amount since the events in Iran. People panic when they get to the pumps because they see the price going up, but they will panic more if they get to the pumps and there is no supply at all. I am not saying that we are there at the moment, but we need to consider how important supply is.

[Joe Robertson (Isle of Wight East) (Con)]

My hon. Friend is giving a characteristically well-informed speech. Might she reflect on the cost of moving around by car for the Prime Minister in his Holborn and St Pancras constituency and the necessity to move around by car for his constituents compared with mine in the Isle of Wight and hers in Gordon and Buchan?

--- Later in debate ---

[Simon Hoare]

I do. My right hon. Friend is right to point to the universality of the negative impact of the proposal. As a good Yorkshirewoman who I know is always persuaded by the validity of common sense, I hope that she will accept the point that when everybody says that the impact on rural communities will be disproportionately felt, that is amplified when one recalls that, on average, the annual income of people living in rural areas is lower than that of those who live in urban or suburban areas.

[Joe Robertson]

My hon. Friend is right to point out that there are only two Labour Members of Parliament sitting on the Government Benches for this debate on the increase in fuel duty. Does he think that the other 400 Labour MPs are right now in a huddle, in a darkened room with the Chancellor, lobbying her to reduce that tax and to freeze fuel duties, or does he think that they might have gone home?

[Simon Hoare]

I would probably suggest to my hon. Friend that a lie-down with a cold flannel in a darkened room might be a good idea for him if that is what he thinks they are doing. I think that they have broadly given up. Let us just make the point. I do not want to rub Government Members’ noses in it, but with the exception of the Whip, who has to be here, the Parliamentary Private Secretary, who feels that she has to pass important pieces of paper from the officials’ Box to her Minister, and the Minister, who has to be here whether he likes it or not, therein ends the interest of the governing party on this particular issue.

Let me amplify a little further my point about necessity. North Dorset is predominantly an economy of micro and small businesses; a lot are family-owned, many are not. Medium-sized enterprises are often looked at as something to be aspired to, but it is predominantly micro and small. There are also a few large businesses such as Dextra, based in Gillingham in my constituency, and Hall & Woodhouse, a brewery that will be known to many colleagues across the south-west and the south—companies that I would classify as the larger employers of North Dorset—and they are seeing their costs go up.

I know that some have used the phrase “white van man and woman”—I think of the Chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee, the right hon. Member for Islington South and Finsbury (Emily Thornberry), who once said it with a bit of a curl of her lip and a sort of snarl in her voice. I do not say it in that way. I admire white van man and woman, who have got off their backsides and set up a business, entrepreneurially, maybe employing one person. They provide vital services to communities and need that vehicle to either go and pick up kit and product so they may fulfil their jobs, or to travel many miles to their work to put food on their table. They are going to be hit.

I think of my farming vets in North Dorset, who have to travel distances to attend to animal welfare issues. My constituency has a very high percentage of retired people—the highest in the county of Dorset—and I think of the carers who are having to use their cars to travel, to visit, to help and to make sure that those people are okay. I also think of my farmers, who, as the Minister will know, play a vital role in delivering not just environmental management but, crucially, food security. They are seeing prices rise as a result of current pressures, not just for the fuel that they use but for the fertiliser that they have to buy.