Campaign to Reduce UK Fuel Tax.
A Rip-off at Almost £1.00 a Litre?

Step #1: SIGN THE PETITION if you want the Government to help bring down the price of fuel by reducing the tax on it. We'll keep you up to speed on progress and when we have enough support, pass over the petition to the relevant people:

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Step #2: COPY AND PASTE THE FOLLOWING AND FORWARD TO EVERYONE YOU KNOW AND A COPY TO THE CHANCELLOR:

Subject: Mr Chancellor, We're Sick of Being Ripped Off! - Reduce UK Fuel TAX NOW! Body: I am a UK subject and wish to register my disagreement at a taxation policy currently making fuel in the UK amongst the most expensive in the world, which places an unnecessary burden on industry and individuals. My disagreement does not indicate support for or against the recent protests with regards to high fuel prices. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ We are rapidly heading to £1.00 a litre, the vast percentage of which is TAX (in the form of fuel duty or value added tax) and is somewhat higher than the European average, and dramatically higher than other developed countries such as the United States and Australia. Want petrol prices to come down? We need to take some intelligent, UNITED action and persuade the Government to change policy on levying such heavy taxes on fuel. BanThePumps.com is pushing for ALL British consumers to take action. United we can influence Government policy. In 2002 Britain was brought to a standstill by the fuel blockades - they didn't work! Then the 'don't buy petrol on a certain day' campaign failed! The Government just laughed at that because they knew we wouldn't continue to hurt ourselves by refusing to buy petrol. It was more of an inconvenience to us than it was a problem for them. BUT, BanThePumps.com, has come up with a plan that can really work. Please read on and join in! Now that the Government has conditioned us to think that the cost of a litre is CHEAP at 77p - 80p, we need to take aggressive action to make them listen to the fact that we really have had enough of being RIPPED OFF! With the price of fuel going up more each day, we consumers need to take action. The only way we are going to see the price of petrol come down is if the Government backs down and stops fleecing the UK motorist with disproportionately high taxes. And we can do that WITHOUT hurting ourselves. Here's what you need to do: Simply forward a copy of this draft via computers, fax and even print it off and post it to everyone you know... and a copy to the Chancellor: To email the Chancellor or the ministerial team, the address is: ministers@hm-treasury.gsi.gov.uk and to send a letter the address is: Rt Hon Gordon Brown MP Chancellor of the Exchequer HM Treasury 1 Horse Guards Road LONDON SW1A 2HQ You can also fax correspondence on 020 7270 458 But to have an impact, we need to reach literally millions of UK fuel buyers. It's really simple to do!! Keep reading and I'll explain how simple it is to reach millions of people!! Send this draft to everyone you know via computers, fax and even print it off and post it to everyone you know, send it to the media and anyone with influence. Also sign the petition at www.banthepumps.com. If each of you send it to at least ten more (30 x 10 = 300)... and those 300 send it to at least ten more (300 x 10 = 3,000) ... and so on, by the time the message reaches the sixth generation of people, we will have reached over THREE MILLION consumers! If those three million get excited and pass this on to ten friends each, then 30 million people will have been contacted! Again, all YOU have to do is send this to 10 people, but send it to everyone to get the message out there. That's all . How long would all that take? If each of us sends this draft out within one day of receipt, all 30 MILLION people could conceivably be contacted within the next 8 days!!! I'll bet you didn't think you had that much influence, did you! Acting together we can make a difference. If this makes sense to you, please pass this message on. PLEASE HOLD OUT UNTIL THE GOVERNMENT FINALLY YEILDS AND STOP FLEECING THE BRITISH DRIVERS AT EVERY OPPORTUNITY. Take action NOW! It's easy to make this happen. Just forward this draft to everyone you know, and and a copy to the dear old Chancellor... and don't forget to sign the petition at www.banthepumps.com Media Contacts can be found at http://www.banthepumps.com Best Regards BanThePumps.com

Copy and past tutorial

Media Contacts:
Media UK: http://www.mediauk.com/
ITN News: http://www.itn.co.uk/contact_us/index.html
BBC News: http://news.bbc.co.uk/newswatch/ukfs/hi/feedback/default.stm
Sky News (click on Feedback, top right column): http://www.sky.com/skynews/uknews
Daily Express: news.desk@express.co.uk Editor: expressletters@express.co.uk
Daily Mail: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/contact
Telegraph: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/pressoffice/main.jhtml?menuId=1703&menuItemId=-1&view=DISPLAYCONTENT&grid=P8&targetRule=0
The Guardian: http://www.guardian.co.uk/feedback/
The Independent: http://news.independent.co.uk/article293866.ece
The Mirror: http://www.mirror.co.uk/aboutus/contactus/
News of the World: newsdesk@news-of-the-world.co.uk or http://www.newsoftheworld.co.uk/newsdesk.shtml
The Scotsman: http://members.scotsman.com/contact.cfm
The Sun: http://www.thesun.co.uk/section/0,,23,00.html or talkback@the-sun.co.uk
Sunday Mirror: http://www.sundaymirror.co.uk/contactus/ or news@sundaymirror.co.uk
The Sunday Times: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/section/0,,260,00.html
BBC Radio 2 Steve Wright: http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio2/shows/wright/contact.shtml
Channel 4 News: http://www.channel4.com/contact_us.html or news@channel4.com
Channel 5 News: http://www.five.tv/home/frameset/?content=10596012& or news@five.tv
GM TV: http://www.gm.tv/index.cfm?articleid=678
Meridian TV: yourstory@meridiantv.com

Internet News:
Annovana: http://www.ananova.com/feedback/
Reuters: http://today.reuters.com/ContactUs.aspx
Transport News Network (TNN): news@tnn.co.uk or http://www.tnn.co.uk/
BBC: http://www.bbc.co.uk/feedback/

Others
The AA: http://www.theaa.com/aboutaa/contact.html
UK Resilence. Information from the DTI in the event of event of problems with the petrol or fuel supply: http://www.ukresilience.info/fuel.htm
Department for Transport: http://www.dft.gov.uk/stellent/groups/dft_control/documents/homepage/dft_home_page.hcsp
Government News Network: http://www.gnn.gov.uk/

Contacting Ministers:
Emails and letters for the Chancellor and his ministerial team come in the first instance into HM Treasury's Correspondence and Enquiry Unit and then are sent into the Chancellor's Private Office. All correspondence received is replied to, within 15 working days and so you will receive a response.

To email the Chancellor or the ministerial team, the address is:
ministers@hm-treasury.gsi.gov.uk

and to send a letter the address is:
Rt Hon Gordon Brown MP
Chancellor of the Exchequer
HM Treasury
1 Horse Guards Road
LONDON SW1A 2HQ

You can also fax correspondence on 020 7270 4580

Other Contacts:

Prime Minister, First Lord of the Treasury and Minister for the Civil Service
The Rt Hon Tony Blair MP tony.blair@geo2.poptel.org.uk

Deputy Prime Minister and Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions
The Rt Hon John Prescott MP john_prescott@detr.gov.uk

Chancellor of the Exchequer
The Rt Hon Gordon Brown MP browng@parliament.uk

The Plan is to Price You Out of Your Car!

Green groups are saying tax should be higher to force force drivers off the road and reduce green house emmisions... very imaginative! Leaded petrol was given a higher level of taxation due to the levels of lead that were being discharged into the environment. LRP is currently dearer at the pump, and is less environmentally damaging than leaded, so why has the price not been reduced? For the average family a 1 pence increase in fuel prices would cost that family an extra £46 per year. The government spend approximately £6 billion on roads and local transport, but a staggering £36 billion is collected in road taxation. Increased fuel duty means increased costs for British businesses, take the haulage companies they have to fill their lorries up at this increased rate, that increase is then passed on to the consumer in the way of price increases. Haulage companies who deliver throughout Europe are facing disaster, the differential in price from the EU market to the British market is making them uncompetitive and will soon send them out of business. This means that inflation will rise and so will the cost of living, the government say that if they drop the level of tax on fuel then spending on the NHS will have to suffer, this is just not true. Public transport is not an option. Buses and coaches become more expensive again because of the underlying cost of running them. The privatised rail and bus companies continue to slash services and close branch routes because running them is not "cost effective." i.e. the shareholders aren't getting their dividends. And the government are doing nothing about it. Rail companies have been underperforming and missing targets ever since privatisation. Yet they're all still in business. And again, your council tax should be paying for public transport. The petrol tax goes straight to the government instead of to local councils where it could be used to make some difference. The driver is in a lose-lose situation. It costs a fortune to run a car, and it costs a fortune to use public transport. For convenience, the car will win every time So you don't drive it doesn't affect you does it? We have seen this question many, many times before and the simple answer is that fuel prices affect EVERYONE. When you go shopping ask yourself how that item got on the shelf? Part of it's journey to the shelves would have been by truck. Your morning paper would have been delivered to your newsagent by van. These transportation costs increase when fuel prices increase and these costs are passed on to you, the consumer. So you see, almost everything you buy has been transported at least partly by road, and high transportation costs are passed on to you by consumer price increases.

UK fuel tax: The facts The price of fuel in the UK is a complicated business and it changes month to month as the cost of crude oil rises and falls with international demand. British drivers also pay two taxes on the petrol they buy at the pump: Fuel Duty and VAT. Of these, fuel duty remains by far the most significant - and remains the most controversial. Fuel Duty If a litre of unleaded petrol costs 85p, 21.7p will be the production costs and profit, around 51p will be duty and 12.5p will be VAT on top of all that.

According to figures released, the Government forecasts that fuel duties will continue to rise rapidly. It's a lot of tax, but the Institute of Fiscal Studies, an independent think tank, says that the large rises in fuel duty began as far back as 1979. See Full Report PDF

In April 2005, both unleaded petrol and diesel were charged excise duty at 47.1 pence per litre.1 Fuel is also subject to value added tax (VAT). Total taxation represented 69.9% of the pump price for unleaded petrol and 67.3% of the pump price for diesel (in each case, this was broken down into 14.9% accounted for by VAT and the remainder by duty).

From just under 40p/litre at the start of 1990, petrol prices rose steadily to around 70p/litre in early 1999. There was then a rapid acceleration in price to a peak of 84.7p/litre for unleaded in July 2000 and 84.6p/litre for diesel in December 2000, which sparked the fuel protests around that time. Prices then fell away and hit a trough in 2002, with a low of 69.9p/litre for unleaded and 74.4p/litre for diesel. This trend reversed in late 2002 and fuel prices increased again, to a new peak for diesel of 86.4p/litre in November 2004 and to 84.2p/litre for unleaded, just below its previous peak. Since the turn of the century, therefore, petrol prices have been more volatile than was the case throughout the 1990s when the price rose continually. This is because of the abandonment of the fuel price escalator and greater volatility in crude oil prices.

Fuel Escalator The major change in petrol taxation came under the Conservatives in 1993 with the introduction of the Fuel Price Escalator. The escalator was designed as a means both to raise money and discourage car use on environmental grounds. At the time, British fuel was the third-cheapest in Europe. It is now the most expensive. The annual fuel escalator was set in 1993 at 3% above the rate of inflation. On its introduction it added three pence to a litre of fuel and raised the tax burden on unleaded petrol to 72.8% of the total cost. When the Conservatives left office in 1997, the escalator was at 5% and had contributed a 11.1 pence rise to the cost of unleaded fuel. Tax as a proportion of total cost stood at 76.3%.

Labour's record

On taking office, the new chancellor Gordon Brown increased the fuel escalator further and put three pence onto a litre of petrol in his first Budget. That pushed taxes up to 81.5% of the total price of fuel. While duty rose by two pence a litre as part of the 2000 Budget, Gordon Brown also scrapped the fuel price escalator, saying that future increases would be decided on the basis of the "due Budget process".

At the time, and perhaps rather ironically given current events, the AA said that it was the first budget in seven years in which "drivers can take some heart". According to the Tories this isn't good enough.

They say that since Labour came to office, the petrol pump price of unleaded petrol has risen by around 71%. And while there have been large jumps in the price of oil, the party blames what it says is Labour's 16p per litre rise in taxes.

Figures from the Institute of Fiscal Studies tell a slightly different story. The Conservative figure of 16p per litre is a combination of duty and VAT. While the actual amount brought in by VAT rises with increases in fuel prices and duty, it is calculated at the same 17.5% level which the present government inherited from the Conservatives.

VAT campaigning

Fuel campaigners argue that VAT should only be calculated on the cost of the fuel rather than on the fuel and the duty together.

If VAT was not charged on the duty, the motorist would save around 8p per litre at September 2000 prices. None of the parties appear to support that move.

Leaving aside VAT, fuel duty increases under Labour amount to 12 pence per litre - just slightly more than the rise caused by the escalator under the Conservatives.

Because of the rise in world oil prices, the proportion of the total fuel cost that is tax has fallen from 85% (March 1998) to 72.3% today - still one of the highest levels in the world - something that ministers have sought to stress in interviews.

August 2005 On Sunday August 7th the UK average price of Unleaded passed the 90p a litre barrier for the first time ever. Prices rose during the month due to continued rises in the price of crude oil, which tipped $67 a barrel in early August. Prices during August to date have been over $60 a barrel (average daily closing price for Brent Crude in July was $57.97). Unleaded prices rose this month by 2.3p per litre (10.5p per gallon), Diesel by 2p per litre (9.1p per gallon), and Super Unleaded by 2p per litre (9.1p per gallon). Northern Ireland now has the highest average price for both Unleaded and Diesel. Wales and the South West have the next highest average prices, with Yorkshire and Humberside having the cheapest prices. At Supermarkets Unleaded rose by 2.6p per litre (11.8p per gallon), Diesel by 2.4p per litre (11p per gallon), and Super Unleaded by 2.5p per litre (11.4p per gallon). Supermarket prices for Unleaded and Diesel are both 1.2p a litre below the UK average. LPG rose by 0.4p per litre, although it rose by 1.2 p per litre at Supermarkets. See current fuel prices

More about the Blockades: UK fuel protest

The fuel protest was a series of protests held in the United Kingdom in 2000 over the cost of petrol.

The protests began September 5 2000 when an upward shift in the price of crude oil prompted major oil companies to announce an increase in the price of petrol to around 81 pence per litre of unleaded (£3.60/$6.50 per gallon). The following day some lorries blockaded the entrance to the British side of the Channel Tunnel, causing heavy delays on the M20 motorway. The following day a further group of protesters, again from the haulage industry, blockaded the Stanlow Shell Oil refinery near Ellesmere Port in Cheshire.

The oil industry were the target of some of the protesters' ire because of their failure to pass reductions in the (highly variable) price of crude oil but speed at passing on prices increases. However the primary target was the Government's fuel tax policy. The British figure of three-quarters of the cost of petrol being tax (in the form of fuel duty or value added tax) is somewhat higher than the European average, and dramatically higher than other developed countries such as the United States and Australia. The fuel protesters said that this disparity was making it increasingly difficult for the British haulage industry to remain competitive with their European rivals, especially since the introduction of the European free market on December 31 1992. The situation led to a difficult position for the oil companies - it was actually perhaps in their long-term interest to support the protesters because if the pressure on the Government succeeded in reducing fuel tax, then consumers would likely buy more petrol, increasing profits for the oil companies. Because of the temporary chaos that ensued it was politically impossible for the companies to come out in support, some commentators suggested that they did not do all they could to get lorries carrying fuel through the assembled protesters. The oil companies responded to this by saying that although they could get lorries through at some depots, they refused to do so on the account of the safety of the drivers.

By Sunday the 10th of September six of the eight major oil refineries around the country had been blockaded by protesters. Drivers, realizing that no new petrol would be heading to petrol stations, started "panic buying" petrol while it was still available. This itself had the effect of hastening a petrol shortage because petrol stations operate a tight "just in time" policy to minimize operate costs that does not allow for dramatic upswings in demand. Some economists chastised the Government for calling the phenomenon "panic buying", saying that on the contrary the behaviour was rational in the circumstances. Local radio stations ran phone-ins advising drivers where fuel had not sold out.

By Tuesday the 12th of September, one-third of all stations in the country were reported to be completely without fuel. Various reports indicated between 75 and 90% of stations were closed at some point during the crisis - many stations closed before they were completely empty in order to lengthen the time they were to supply emergency services. On the morning of the 12th Tony Blair was driven back to London from Newcastle in order to deal with growing chaos. Many commentators were keen to point out the high fuel consumption rate of his Jaguar, though others regarded this as a cheap shot in a time of crisis. Some health authorities cancelled non-essential operations to reduce ambulance movement. Later in the day Blair held meetings with the UK chairmen of the oil companies and on the evening news announced that measures were being taken to clear the blockades and that the "situation would begin to return to normal tomorrow." Blair and John Prescott, the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Transport, said that the Government would not be bounced into a "rash decision" on fuel tax because of the protestors.

Now that the safety of the lorry drivers was guaranteed by a preponderance of police numbers at the refineries and depots, and noting a shift in public opinion that had earlier been firmly behind the backers, the blockades dissipated rapidly on Wednesday morning. The protestors said that they were giving the Government sixty days to do act on the issue or they would protest further.

In November, just prior to the sixty day deadline, there was some further panic-buying reported in East Kilbride and Glasgow. In fact such buying turned out not to be necessary; although truckers slow-moving protestors along motorways converging on London over the 13th and 14th of November, the renewed protest did not gather much support. Chancellor Gordon Brown's had announced in his pre-Budget report published the week beforehand that fuel duty was to be frozen for two years, perhaps eroding some of the support base for the strikes. By Christmas extra production by OPEC members had brought the price of crude oil down, which in turn led to petrol price reductions.

A report published by the Department for Transport said that at the protest's peak, 14th September, motorway traffic was 40% below normal levels and non-motorway traffic 25% below.

The protests were organised by Richard Haddock, David Handley and Brynle Williams. Williams later became a member of the Welsh Assembly for the Conservative party. In May 2004, with crude oil and petrol prices edging ahead of their September 2000 levels, fuel prices again hit the public agenda, with some suggesting further protests may be imminent.

By March 2005, fuel prices had risen far above those that triggered the 2000 fuel protest without any further disruption, to an average of more than £0.84 GBP per litre.

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