Treasury denies plans to slash fuel duty
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• The Treasury has denied reports that Gordon Brown wants to slash fuel tax and switch instead to raising more money from road tolls.
A spokesman dismisses press reports that it is studying the French system of introducing road charges and reducing fuel prices: it is just speculation. The Department of Transport has already made it clear that the law doesn't allow for this."
The row comes as European rules to add VAT to road tolls threaten to heap further red tape and expense on hauliers.
The European Court of Justice is expected to force Britain to add VAT to road tolls from September. The extra cost could be more than the VAT rate of 17.5% because the payments might be backdated by four years.
But Customs & Excise is playing down the impact
on the haulage industry saying that VAT can be claimed back if companies are VAT registered.
• Chancellor Gordon Brown has come under fire for "double-dealing" in his efforts to claw more money back in fuel duty from drivers.
Shadow Transport Secretary Bernard Jenkin has accused Brown of using two different inflation rates to work out pension increases and rises in fuel duty.
The pensioners' 75p-a-week rise is based on the historic inflation figure of 1.1% from September 1999, while this September's predictive figure of 3.3% is used for fuel duty. Brown insisted in March that both the pensions and fuel increases were in line with inflation.
"This double-dealing is at the expense of the motorist." says Jenkin. "We only recently stumbled across what they are doing."