Fuel protestors demand tax cut

Sunday, 11 September 2005 12:00 AM

Fuel protestors are planning a series of motorway go-slows and refinery demonstrations next week unless the government cuts tax on fuel.

Campaigners from the Fuel Lobby have given ministers three days to meet them to discuss their grievances or Britain will face demonstrations on Wednesday.

There has been growing anger at the rising cost of petrol, which has now reached £1 a litre in the UK, following price rises of over 20 per cent in recent months.

Disruption caused to the US oil industry in the wake of Hurricane Katrina now threatens to force the price of fuel even higher.

Chancellor Gordon Brown has issued a plea to oil-producing countries urging them to increase supplies in order to relieve pressure on prices.

But Mr Brown and fellow EU finance ministers meeting to discuss the rising cost of crude oil in Manchester on Saturday stopped short of offering the kind of tax cuts demonstrators are demanding.

Interviewed by Andrew Marr for the first edition of BBC1's Sunday AM, Mr Brown repeated his insistence that the oil crisis was a "global problem that demands global solutions."

Refusing to say whether he would introduce the freeze on fuel duty demanded by protestors in this autumn's Pre-Budget Report, the chancellor outlined a three-point plan to bring the price of petrol down, involving increased production by oil states, greater transparency in the oil market and increased investment in new capacity.

Mr Brown said Opec, the international organisation of oil-producing countries, had failed to respond quickly enough to the rising demand for oil from China and said he wanted to see action taken to increase supply and stem petrol prices by the end of the month.

But Fuel Lobby spokesman Andrew Spence said it would have been "common sense" for EU ministers to have agreed fuel tax cuts in order to ease the burden on hauliers and motorists, rather than relying on oil-producing countries to solve the crisis.

He said hauliers in France and Spain were planning their own protests in sympathy with Wednesday's demonstrations in the UK, but dismissed reports that campaigners are plotting refinery blockades similar to those which brought the country to a standstill in 2000.

"I strongly urge against blockades," he said. "We want peaceful protests. We are going to maintain a presence, but we will not be stopping supplies going in or going out."

"It should not be disruptive. I can't say strenuously enough that people should not be panic-buying," Mr Spence added.

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