Time to lend drivers a helping hand

The Government has just taken a savaging in the local elections and desperately needs a popularity boost. In the same week comes news that, soon, we’ll be pumping as much as 15p of every £ we earn into our car’s tanks, just to keep mobile. An average fill-up may soon cost a barely believable £84.

Is the opportunity to play the good guy Brown so sorely needs staring him in the face? The Treasury pulls in an extra £12.75m daily because of the rise in pump prices. If it gave this back the duty we pay would drop by 9p per litre. Currently, of every litre we pump, 70p goes to the Exchequer. For some, the rise in prices will spur them to walk, cycle or take public transport. But, for most of us our daily journeys would take too long or prove too difficult to attempt if not by car.

If the £4.68bn a year this adds up to was diverted into transforming public transport, so that leaving cars at home became a real alternative for most of us, there might be a case for leaving things as they are. But there’s no sign of that happening.

And in the absence of any such move, the AA’s suggestion that this autumn’s planned 2p rise in fuel be scrapped seems wise. And that organisation’s call for a further 2p cut in duty is modest. It’s one we’d like to see.

What do you think – should the Government hand back some of the extra, or the whole lot? Leave your comment below, and vote in our Motor Mouth poll.