Budget 2020: Chancellor Rishi Sunak to freeze fuel duty for TENTH year in a victory for The Sun’s Keep It Down campaign
RISHI Sunak will today freeze fuel duty for the TENTH year in a move that will delight hard up motorists, The Sun can reveal.
The new Chancellor will cancel a scheduled 2p-a-litre tax rise at the pumps due next month in his first Budget today.
The decision is another spectacular victory for The Sun’s Keep It Down campaign.
And it comes despite a concerted push by Treasury mandarins to hike the hated tax, which already stands at 58p per litre.
Freezing fuel duty for another full year until at least April 2021 – which costs the Treasury a massive £800million - also delivers on a general election promise by Boris Johnson.
Mr Sunak will also tomorrow deliver an array of other manifesto pledges made by the Tories in December, as part of PM Boris Johnson’s bid to cement trust with millions of Labour switchers.
Also in the crucial Budget tomorrow:
- THE Chancellor will lay out a major rescue package for businesses and workers expecting to get battered by the coronavirus outbreak.
- MR Sunak will also unleash the biggest state building splurge in 65 years to rebuild left behind Britain, doling out an extra £100bn on new roads, railways and housing.
- BRITAIN'S 31 million workers will be given a £100 a year tax cut when the tax-free threshold for National Insurance Contributions is raised to £9,500.
Having only got the second biggest job in politics four weeks ago, , 39, will also level with MPs on whether he plans to borrow billions more to pay for the huge increase in state spending.
The government has also promised a record £34bn more for the NHS as well as to hire 20,000 more police.
A bitter row between Sajid Javid and chief No10 aide Dominic Cummings lead to his predecessor’s dramatic resignation last month.
Climate change activists aligned with Treasury chiefs and even some No10 aides to try to persuade Mr Sunak to raise fuel duty for the first time since George Osborne instituted the freeze in 2011.
But Tory MPs were enraged by the move when it leaked, and joined forces with pressure group FairFuelUK and The Sun to halt it.
The decision makes our 10-year-long campaign one of the most expensive for the Treasury in history, costing an estimated £50bn in total.
It has saved saving hard up motorists more than £1,000 in the last decade.
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The axing of inflation-linked fuel duty rise will save motorists £1.20 every time they fill up an average 60-litre tank.
But Mr Sunak is today expected to take action on high polluting red diesel, used by off-road vehicles.
He is likely to end its subsidy, which will save the Treasury £2.4 billion a year.
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