Jeremy Hunt’s Budget could involve a plot to tackle “price fixing” at the petrol pumps, according to FairFuel UK’s Howard Cox.
It comes after new analysis from RAC Fuel Watch shows drivers are having to fork out a huge 20p per litre more for diesel than petrol, despite there being little difference between the two fuels on the wholesale market.
Cox says the research is a slam-dunk case of “price fixing”, which he says is an epidemic at UK pumps as a result of the “commodity war” in the UK.
The FairFuelUK founder says the Government is making moves to tackle the fuel crisis in the UK, saying Chancellor Jeremy Hunt “knows where 37 million motorists sit”.
Speaking to GB News, he told Bev Turner: “I’ve been calling for Pump Watch, and let’s hope that in a fortnight Wednesday, Jeremy Hunt puts something in the Budget.”
Questioned over whether this is something he expects to see, he said: “Put it this way, I’m getting good vibes.
“No one is saying you’re going to get Pump Watch, it’ll probably be called else, it’ll probably be run by a civil servant.
“But fundamentally there is definitely a move afoot, and with 60 backbench MPs writing to him [Hunt] and calling for Pump Watch and a cut in fuel duty, he knows exactly where FairFuelUK and 37 million drivers sit.”
Howard Cox has called for an independent fuel price regulator
Image: GB News
Howard Cox’s proposed PumpWatch would see the creation of an independent pricing watchdog to regulate the price of fuel.
The FairFuelUK founder has accused the Government of “ignoring” the “perpetual fleecing” of 37 million drivers in the UK.
Speaking about diesel users being subject to a significantly higher cost per litre for their fuel, Cox said it takes place “because they can do it”.
“They're price fixing. They're sorting things out as diesel is a commodity more than petrol because petrol is refined over here, diesels refined over here, but we import more of the fuel than we do with petrol.
“Petrol being more volatile, it's dangerous to transport biotech tankers, but diesel comes across in tankers or from all around the world and they can actually manipulate the price to suit or whatever the speculators want to do.
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“And that's what's happening in the fuel supply chain.”
The RAC urged retailers to cut diesel pump prices to “fairer levels” which reflect costs.
It found that diesel’s wholesale price – the amount that retailers pay for fuel – was just 6p per litre more than petrol last week.
But a litre of diesel is being sold at an average of around 168p while petrol is just 148p.
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Latest Government figures show 17.6 million vehicles licensed in the UK are diesel-powered, including the vast majority of vans.
That represents 43 per cent of all vehicles on the road.
RAC spokesman Simon Williams said: “Drivers of the country’s diesel vehicles have every right to feel hard done by as they’re paying a huge premium for the fuel which in no way reflects its lower wholesale cost.
“For nearly a month, the gap between wholesale petrol and diesel prices has been less than 10p a litre and in recent days it has reduced to just 3.5p, yet average diesel prices at the pumps remain stubbornly high having fallen by only 2p since the start of February.
“The fact membership-only retailer Costco has been able to cut the average price of a litre of diesel by 4p last week shows what’s possible, but we badly need other fuel retailers to treat drivers of diesel vehicles fairly.”