Nigel yesterday spoke in the House of Commons to propose a windfall tax on the profits of petrol retailers if they do not reflect the fall of global oil prices in the price of their fuel.
Speaking in the House of Commons Mr Evans said, ‘A car is a necessity, not a luxury, in the Ribble valley. It is a rural area, as the Leader of the House knows, and many hard-pressed motorists are now benefiting from the fact that petrol prices have dropped. They have not dropped enough, however; petrol should now be about £1 a litre. May we have a debate on fuel prices so that we can not only shame those organisations that are not fully passing on the price reductions but propose that if they do not do so now, the Government will consider imposing a windfall tax on their profits?’
Speaking after the debate Mr. Evans said “The Government has done its part during this Parliament to help motorists, freezing fuel duty and scrapping Labour’s fuel duty escalator, and it is now time for retailers to do the same. It cannot be right that when oil prices go up so does the price of petrol, hurting hard-pressed motorists, but when the global price of oil falls the price of petrol just stays the same. I have proposed this windfall tax in the hope of ending this unfair situation.”