Environmentalists target Stanlow Oil Refinery to oppose fuel duty cuts

Green campaigners from Wales are today demonstrating outside Stanlow oil refinery to put the case against cutting fuel duty to tanker drivers and potential future fuel protesters (1). The campaigners from Friends of the Earth (FOE) Cymru say that the debate so far has been tragically poor. They say that the interests of farmers, hauliers, the rural poor, the general public and the global environment would be far better served by targeting fuel tax revenues to address specific problems, not fuel tax cuts.

Tanker drivers will be approached by the campaigners and asked to do their best in maintaining deliveries should fuel protesters return. FOE Cymru stress that all actions will be peaceful and lawful.

FOE Cymru say that since September's fuel protests, the case for the escalated fuel duty has been underlined. The UK's £700 million autumn floods (2), and the recent upward revision of climate change forecasts (3) have brought home greater awareness of the threats posed by fossil fuel induced global warming. More mundanely, various reports and analyses of the haulage industry and the overall costs of private motoring do not support the protesters principal claims. Indeed, when fuel duty, Vehicle Excise Duty (VED), and road tolls are all included in assessment, UK hauliers were not particularly disadvantaged at European level (4) and private motoring costs are not relatively high, even before the last budget.

Furthermore, fuel duty rebates could be used to neutralise regressive effects of the duty escalator. For example, FOE Cymru have proposed rural Council Tax rebates for remoter and poorer households as enhanced public and community transport services are not necessarily available. For most motorists their costs have risen less than average earnings since the 80s. Consequently, fuel-efficient car purchases have not increased until very recently and many generally drive faster and further indicating
fuel is not seen as an expensive commodity.

Neil Crumpton transport and energy spokesperson for FOE Cymru who organised the action said:

"Investing fuel tax revenues on helping those people suffering from transport and road-fuel poverty would achieve far more than across the board pump-price cuts which would benefit gas guzzlers in the city more than the rural poor. Various rural rebate schemes, properly funded regulation of the cut-throat haulage industry and the Eurovignette scheme which tolls foreign hauliers, would resolve most of those sectors' real transport problems.

Farmers and consumers too do not benefit from cheap and possibly poorly regulated food imports encouraged by subsidising long-distance freight. Reducing pump-prices would not only bring pressure for more direct taxation. It would encourage more traffic and CO2 emissions and that would have serious implications for farmers, flood victims, governments and everyone else the world over because climate change is the real fuel crisis."

Notes

1) Campaigners will display a large banner at or near the main gate of the Stanlow oil refinery saying:

Don't Cut Tax, Cut CO2 - Climate Change is the Real Fuel Crisis - Drive Less, Drive Slower - Buy Fuel-Efficient Cars !

Leaflets will be handed to tanker drivers if they are willing to take one.

Time of demo 11am to 3pm outside main gate, the site of September's fuel protests.

2) Association of British Insurers estimate floods cost insurers up to £700m in October and November alone - against weather damage claim costs of £861m for the whole of the previous year. Up to 1.2m properties in Britain are at risk of inland flooding - 4 per cent of the total building stock. London has the largest exposure of up to 100,000 properties. The total insured value of property at risk is estimated at £35bn.

3) Third Assessment Report of Working Group 1 of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) January 2001 - Worst case scenario is revised to an average global temperature increase of 5.8 degrees centigrade, up by a massive 2 degrees. Also UK Climate Impacts Programme (UKCIP) 98 Scenario Report.

4) The major problem facing UK hauliers is overcapacity in the poorly funded/regulated industry. Many small operators can under-cut other operators by overloading their lorries, skimping dangerously on maintenance and exceeding other safety requirements in the knowledge that they will probably not be caught. The perceived threat of unfair competition from European hauliers was not substantiated to the House of Commons
Transport Committee last year and a Eurovignette scheme was announced at the last
budget.