HOPES are rising for millions of drivers that fuel duty might NOT rise in next week’s Budget after Trending In The News’s Keep It Down campaign.
Mr Sunak is under pressure to keep the freeze on fuel duty rises as he searches for how to fill his Covid black hole.
Pleas not to hike fuel duty — backed by Trending In The News’s Keep It Down crusade — come as a new eco-petrol is sanctioned for use at UK pumps.
Ministers signed off plans for E10 — a mix of petrol and ethanol made from materials including grains, sugars and waste wood — from September.
The cut in emissions will be like taking 350,000 cars off our roads.
The hopes of Rishi keeping fuel duty down come after Trending In The News revealed how more than two dozen Tory MPs have written to him urging him not to raise fuel tax in his Budget.
They say Boris Johnson made a pledge in 2019 not to increase the hated levy and breaking the vow would betray voters.
The 26 Conservatives – including former ministers Tracey Crouch, Esther McVey, David Davis and Iain Duncan Smith said Brits pay more at the pumps than anywhere in the EU.
The 58p-a-litre levy is in the Chancellor’s sights.
But the letter shows Downing Street faces a major rebellion on Mr Sunak’s Budget if drivers are targeted.
The warning shot was organised by Rob Halfon MP and Howard Cox, of Fair Fuel UK – who have been working with Trending In The News to “Keep It Down” for a decade.
It says the move would “create significant economic difficulties” for millions.
The letter says analysis by the Centre for Economics and Business Research shows “a hike of 2p would cut GDP by £600million, reduce employment by 8,000 jobs and add 0.6% to inflation”.
And many are thought to have been using their cars over public transport to try and avoid catching Covid- another reason the Chancellor has been put off.
Tory MP Mr Halfon said: “If the Government needs funds, it should tax millionaires, rather than millions of hard-working Brits.”
Howard Cox added: “Truckers and van drivers are the solution to get back to sanity.
“Burdening them with more costs will risk economic recovery and those new red-wall Tory voters will suffer the far-reaching increases in shop prices and loss of jobs.”
A rise of 3p a litre would raise £1billion for the Treasury — but also cost van drivers a punishing extra £250 a year to fill up.
It would also lead to price increases for online sales — with nine in ten households now dependent on home deliveries.
Fuel costs have soared by £4 a tank since December as the average pump price nears 122p.
