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House hustles on refund of fuel surcharge
Page 72
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FROM OUR POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT
DARLIAMENT is to be asked to hustle through a Bill, produced by the Minister of Transport, to enable more than £1 m. to be paid back to bus operators this financial year in respect of last July's 10 per cent fuel surcharge.
The Bill has been introduced following complaints from the industry (COMMERCIAL MOTOR Nov. 4) that, nearly four months after Mr. Wilson's promise of the refund, operators Were still waiting for a hint of when they might get their money back.
Now, according to the Ministry, speed is to be the order of the day. But although all parties are understood to agree there should be no hold-up to the Bill, operators may be lucky to see much of their money coming back before Christmas.
The Bill itself, however, is a short one and Parliament should not have much difficulty in getting it through before the Christmas holiday. It received a second reading last Thursday and as there is only one clause, there seems little reason why it should not be virtually nodded into law.
Its purpose is to enable the Minister to make repayments of the surcharge by way of grants for fuel used in stage carriage services. As it also provides for repayments of any surcharge additions which might be made in future, there is hope that the current hiatus need not happen again.
It is estimated that the pay-back will total about £1,100,000 up to next March 31. After that, as the Bill points out laconically, the amount paid under this measure will depend on whether the surcharge goes, up, down or stands stilt—and on whether the Government sticks to its policy of paying it back.
The July surcharge put up the duty on fuel by nearly 4dh a gallon. Operators entitled to the refund will now have this added to the 6d. a gallon refund already in force following the 1965 Budget. The administrative expenses incurred in the new repayments are described as "negligible".