Fuel Duty Rise Still Possible In March 2023 adding 12p a Litre To Unleaded and Diesel heading to £2

18th November 2022

Motorists could be paying even more for their fossil fuels next year as part of a fuel duty hike Jeremy Hunt failed to mention.

The price people pay for petrol and diesel at the pump might go up by around 12p-a-litre, the government's budget watchdog predicts.

The Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) sets out forecasts for the economy and public finances. And today's outlook was grim, to say the least.

Buried inside its backgrounder to Jeremy Hunt's Autumn Statement, the OBR pointed to a ‘planned 23% increase in the figure duty rate in late-March 2023',

‘This would be a record cash increase,’ the OBR’s Economic and Fiscal Outlook added today, given that fuel duty has been frozen since January 2011.

The OBR says this would raise a potential £5.7 billion, but the move that could impact millions of motorists was not mentioned in the Autumn Statement.

In March, then-chancellor Rishi Sunak cut fuel duty by 5p per litre until March 2023.

This is a policy many Tory MPs are keen to keep in place, with some demanding the 5p cut be extended well beyond next Spring.

An 11th-hour petition signed by two dozen Tory MPs was sent to Hunt’s desk yesterday urging him to do just that.

Pump prices have been on an upward trend since 2020, according to data from the RAC Foundation, a transport policy and research centre.

If the planned price hike goes ahead at current prices, the RAC Foundation says petrol would rise to 175p a litre and diesel swell to the near £2-per-litre mark.