Fuel duty: the hidden costs


Fuel duty rose by 2p this week, the third increase in the last ten months. Governments tend to view petrol taxes as a convenient source of revenue when budget deficits are high. Indeed, the last Conservative government increased fuel duty dramatically in the mid-1990s, introducing a tax escalator at the tail end of the last recession.

Richard Wellings was formerly Deputy Research Director at the Institute of Economic Affairs. He was educated at Oxford and the London School of Economics, completing a PhD on transport and environmental policy at the latter in 2004. He joined the Institute in 2006 as Deputy Editorial Director. Richard is the author, co-author or editor of several papers, books and reports, including Towards Better Transport (Policy Exchange, 2008), A Beginner’s Guide to Liberty (Adam Smith Institute, 2009), High Speed 2: The Next Government Project Disaster? (IEA , 2011) and Which Road Ahead - Government or Market? (IEA, 2012). He is a Senior Fellow of the Cobden Centre and the Economic Policy Centre.



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