Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, what assessment he has made of the implications of the findings of the report by Professor David Begg entitled Unintended Consequences of Freezing Fuel Duty, published on 1 June 2018, for the Government's policies on (a) transport, (b) road congestion, (c) air quality and (d) lost tax revenues.

To support British households and businesses, at Autumn Budget 2017, the government froze fuel duty for the eighth successive year. Since public finances are based on the assumption that fuel duty will increase with RPI at every Budget, any increase below this represents a cost to the Exchequer. Successive freezes since 2011 have saved the average driver £620 compared to what it would have been with RPI increases.

Since 2011, the announced freezes to fuel duty have meant the Exchequer has not collected around £46 billion in revenues through to 2018-19. For the purposes of comparison, this is around twice as much as we spend on all NHS nurses and doctors each year.”