UK measures to counter pressure on the industry

Keir Starmer, prime minister of the UK, has told parliament that a widely expected move to extend by a year an originally temporary measure that cut GBP 0.05 off the country’s fuel tax will now indeed go ahead. According to local news reports the PM said that the extended freeze and a vehicle-tax break for the haulage industry were “a necessary response to cost-of-living pressures.”

The measure was introduced under PM Rishi Sunak in 2022, after the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The vehicle-tax break gives national hauliers a twelve-month vehicle-tax ‘holiday’, helping to keep prices down. The freeze in fuel duty has been extended to the rest of this year.