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Fuel duty stays frozen
Page 10
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THE INDUSTRY has been offered a slight reprieve from soaring fuel prices this month with an extension of the freeze on fuel duty.
The government announced that tax will be frozen until the Chancellor's pre-Budget report in November because of high world oil prices. Gordon Brown had originally frozen the duty increase until September.
Treasury Minister John Healy says:"The risk of oil price volatility remains high. and the government will not therefore go ahead with the planned inflation-only increase in main road fuel duties on 1 September."
Simon Chapman, the Freight Transport Association's chief economist, says the decision was almost a "foregone conclusion" given the state of world oil prices.
"It is better he gave that decision now rather than September so that the industry knows what is happening for the next six weeks," he says."[But] it's a bit frustrating that he didn't say it would be abandoned for all of the 2006-2007 financial year."