Jeremy Hunt’s Budget fuel duty freeze is nothing to celebrate

It is fiscally irresponsible, writes James Moore – grotesquely so. It is also ruinously expensive and terrible for the planet

The ‘freeze’ – justified (in part) because oil prices have been ticking up – is the worst of all worlds, writes James Moore (PRU/AFP via Getty Images)

Chancellor Jeremy Hunt has announced a “freeze” on fuel duty for the 13th year in a row – and I can’t imagine anything worse or more irresponsible. The move – presumably designed to curry favour with the gaz-guzzling Tory voter base – will retain Rishi Sunak’s “temporary” 5p fuel duty cut of 2022 for at least another year.

This is shaping up to be a bad Budget indeed for Britain’s creaking public services. The “freeze” – justified (in part) because oil prices have been ticking up – is the worst of all worlds. It is grossly fiscally irresponsible, environmentally destructive – and will principally benefit people who are already fairly well off.

Let’s start with the first of those: using the projections of the Office for Budgetary Responsibility, the Social Market Foundation – a think tank – has estimated that the total cumulative cost of failing to uprate the duty in line with inflation comes to £100bn in the current fiscal year. This includes lost VAT (which is charged on the fuel you buy and the duty).