Motorists should brace for fuel duty hikes and 'perma-high' petrol costs, AA warns

Families, businesses and workers face an era of 'perma-high' road fuel costs, the AA warns. Starmer said he'd supported a freeze 'every single time it has come up' but that 'fuel duty will have to be decided budget by budget' and hasn't categorically ruled out a fuel duty hike If the Treasury increases fuel duty in the Budget on top of the 'bloated' fuel retailer margins and already high commodity prices, it will 'lock in and condemn UK families' to huge outlays in the cost of fueling and getting on the road, the AA says. The Social Market Foundation thinktank estimates that 14 years of frozen fuel duty freeze and the 5p cut since 2022 has cost the Treasury £130billion since 2011. The changing rate of fuel duty since 2000 7 March 2001: 45.82p 1 October 2003: 47.10p 7 December 2006: 48.35p 1 October 2007: 50.35p 1 December 2008: 52.35p 1 April 2009: 54.19p 1 September 2009: 56.19p 1 April 2010: 57.19p 1 October 2010: 58.19p 1 January 2011: 58.95p 23 March 2011: 57.95p 23 March 2022: 52.95p *Fuel duty cuts in bold With the price of fuel declining dramatically in the following years, the Government reintroduced a petrol duty at a rate of 4d per gallon in 1928 and the levy rose gradually as years progressed. In the March 1993 Budget, then Chancellor Norman Lamont hiked fuel duty by 10p per litre and introduced a 'Fuel Price Escalator' that was initially set at 3 per cent ahead of inflation per year - though that was increased to 5 per cent later the same year.