High fuel costs are strangling British industry

As part of its campaign to persuade the Government to reduce the enormous burden of fuel duty on diesel for UK industry, the Freight Transport Association is making available posters and stickers for use in offices and on vehicles. The items are available free of charge from the FTA website or FTA’s shop.

The price of diesel for commercial vehicles has increased by over 40 per cent during the last twelve months due to the steep increase in world oil costs. These problems are further complicated in the UK by the Government’s ultra-high fuel duty regime – UK diesel duty is 50p per litre compared with an average for the rest of Europe of just 25p per litre. Given that all goods have to be delivered, these high fuel costs are placing a heavy burden on the whole of UK industry and on the transport sector in particular.

FTA’s Director of External Affairs, Geoff Dossetter says, ‘The whole UK population is suffering from the impact of higher oil prices. However, we believe that the public is sympathetic to the special problems of the transport sector which delivers the goods on which we all rely. High fuel prices for the transport industry contribute to inflation for all of us.

‘The Chancellor and the Government cannot do much about the world price of oil but they can, and should, cut diesel duty to a level more in line with our competitors from the rest of Europe. FTA has submitted suggestions as to how this could be done with minimal impact on the whole budget.

‘The new posters and stickers are designed to remind the public of the facts and the problems and we hope to see their widespread use.’

Applications for free copies of the posters (size A2) should quote order code 4946 and the stickers (size A4) 4945. The items can be viewed and ordered from shop.fta.co.uk or by calling Shopfta on 08717 11 11 11.