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The Freight Transport Association has sent the following letter to Chancellor Gordon Brown.. This urgent communiqué concerns the high price of diesel in the UK. it follows a meeting today of the Freight Transport Council, which is the main policy body for our 11,000 members and whose membership consists of key business and logistics interests across the entire range of UK industry.
As you know, diesel is the basic raw material for commercial road transport and its price, therefore, has a strong impact on industry's costs and our competitiveness, The UK's position way out at the top of the diesel price league will be well known to you; we are in that position as a consequence of the high taxation policies adopted by successive Governments.
We have previously alerted you as to the dangers of such policies and the potential eventual impact of rising crude prices—a prediction which has now come true.
When I wrote to you earlier
this year following your March Budget, I made clear our appreciation of your decision to bring the Fuel Tax Escalator to an end and only impose tax increases in line with inflation. But I also made clear that more needed to be done, particularly at a time when industry is hampered by a strong pound.
That was the firmly held view of my members' meeting today, especially in the light of evidence that other countries within Europe have already reduced fuel taxes to counteract the rising crude oil price. The most recent example is Norway, which lies second in the league table to the UK and has now decided to progressively bring fuel taxes in line with the EU average.
I well understand that taxation policies cannot be expected to mirror movements in worldwide commodity prices. But urgent action is necessary to signal a closer alignment of UK fuel taxes with those for the rest of the EU—at the very least for the industrial road transport sector. David C Green,
Director-general, FM.