MPs want fuel duty cash to cut bus fares

THE Treasury should ring-fence money from fuel duty to cut rising public transport fares in an attempt to rebuild trust in green taxes, MPs are urging.

The public has lost trust in green taxation because the Treasury appears to use it as a revenue-raiser rather than an effort to reduce pollution, the Environmental Audit Committee said.

Recent Budgets created the perception that taxes on things such as flights and fuel were “simply being used to pinch extra pennies from people”, said committee chairwoman Joan Walley.

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In a report on this year’s Budget and environmental taxes, the committee said the Treasury should ring-fence some of the revenues from green taxation to invest in less-polluting alternatives.

For example, funding raised from fuel duty should go towards lower bus and train fares. Green taxation “cannot be all stick and no carrots”, the report said.

The committee warned that green taxes needed to be straightforward and send a clear signal about behaviour to consumers, as well as be fair in order to build support for the measures.

It said the Treasury needed a coherent strategy for environmental taxation. The MPs criticised the announcement in the most recent Budget to cut a penny from fuel duty while providing no new incentives for switching to low-carbon alternatives such as electric cars.

Ms Walley, Labour MP for Stoke-on-Trent North, said: “Politicians should use green taxes more carefully to challenge and change the most polluting activities.”