An Independent Watchdog for Fuel?

[Dorset Bob]

I do like the idea of having a watchdog similar to existing consumer watchdogs such as Ofgem, Ofcom and Ofwat, in order to protect us motorists.
Despite the drop in crude oil prices, we are still paying the high crude oil price for our fuel.

If you want to sign a petition, the link is below: -
https://chng.it/24ZWZbxRJX

[MSS]

Watchdogs are established to put a consumer-centric veneer or illusion on political decisions.

With fuel, it is in the government's interest to have high prices as the largest percentage of the total pump price is tax revenue. These tax revenues are needed to keep the country running. There is no escaping paying taxes. Just bear it with a smile!

[grivas]

Originally Posted by MSS

Watchdogs are established to put a consumer-centric veneer or illusion on political decisions.

With fuel, it is in the government's interest to have high prices as the largest percentage of the total pump price is tax revenue. These tax revenues are needed to keep the country running. There is no escaping paying taxes. Just bear it with a smile!

Indeed so, since Brexit the UK economy has shrunk by 4%, and the pandemic of Covid-19 has had a very bad effect on trade, the cost to the government in revenues is estimated at 30 billion GBP, being seen to increase taxation is a bad idea, so since money has to come in to the exchequer from somewhere, high fuel prices is a great way to collect much needed revenue without raising many eyebrows!.

[macafee2]

Originally Posted by Dorset Bob

I do like the idea of having a watchdog similar to existing consumer watchdogs such as Ofgem, Ofcom and Ofwat, in order to protect us motorists.
Despite the drop in crude oil prices, we are still paying the high crude oil price for our fuel.

If you want to sign a petition, the link is below: -
https://chng.it/24ZWZbxRJX

The idea sounds good but I have my reservations that they would have teeth, be free from political party and company intervention?

macafee2

have signed petition

[roverbarmy]

The crude oil price has recently gone down. What's happened to the price at the pumps? Nothing!!!

[Arctic]

Originally Posted by grivas

Indeed so, since Brexit the UK economy has shrunk by 4%, and the pandemic of Covid-19 has had a very bad effect on trade, the cost to the government in revenues is estimated at 30 billion GBP, being seen to increase taxation is a bad idea, so since money has to come in to the exchequer from somewhere,

Would it not be better then to raise the fuel price by another 25p and stop the tax on cars, that way the more fuel you use the more tax you pay.

if they did that all our eyebrows would raised most likely to the back of our heads

[guru]

Originally Posted by Dorset Bob

I do like the idea of having a watchdog similar to existing consumer watchdogs such as Ofgem, Ofcom and Ofwat, in order to protect us motorists.
Despite the drop in crude oil prices, we are still paying the high crude oil price for our fuel.

If you want to sign a petition, the link is below: -
https://chng.it/24ZWZbxRJX

We already have Ofgem which from 2030 will protect us motorists!

I must admit I've become a bit spoilt paying 5p a unit to charge the ZS which for our daily 60 mile commute works out at around £1.40. I filled the X5 up for the first time in about 2 months the other day and managed to get £103 of diesel in it!!!!!! Absolutely shocking, I hadn't realised fuel prices have jumped up that much. I also stuck £30 of petrol in the ZT which barely took it to half a tank.

That said I wouldn't hold your breath for that to change any time soon. The government are heavily pushing to be carbon neutral and notwithstanding fuel duty brings in much needed cash at the moment.

We just try to minimise journeys in the ICE cars and over lockdown we took to cycling a lot more which is a habit we've kept up hence the X5 only needing fuel every 2 or 3 months but I do feel sorry for people who are not in a position to make those changes.

It's a shame we don't have better public transport such as railways, I wonder what happened to them?.............

[Dorset Bob]

This petition has nothing to do with excise duty on fuel.
That is another agenda....

It is to do with the fuel retailers pocketing the difference, by maintaining high prices, when their costs have fallen.

[MSS]

Originally Posted by Dorset Bob

This petition has nothing to do with excise duty on fuel.
That is another agenda....

It is to do with the fuel retailers pocketing the difference, by maintaining high prices, when their costs have fallen.

I suspect that this petition was started during the height of the pandemic in 2020 when fuel usage and prices were at an all time low. The retailer's profit rose to around 18/19 p/litre. You could argues that this was needed given their fixed costs remained fixed but they were selling much smaller quantities of fuel.

The picture now is very different - see the latest numbers from the RAC here. https://www.rac.co.uk/drive/advice/fuel-watch/

Even if you cut the retailer's addition of 16p/litre on Petrol or 11p/litre on diesel, so an average of around 13p/litre at the pumps, by 4p i.e. a third, it's not going to make a huge difference to the total price of the litre that we buy.

Higher fuel prices are here to stay unless there is a huge cut in demand worldwide.

[Dorset Bob]

Originally Posted by MSS

I suspect that this petition was started during the height of the pandemic in 2020 when fuel usage and prices were at an all time low. The retailer's profit rose to around 18/19 p/litre. You could argues that this was needed given their fixed costs remained fixed but they were selling much smaller quantities of fuel.

The picture now is very different - see the latest numbers from the RAC here. https://www.rac.co.uk/drive/advice/fuel-watch/

Even if you cut the retailer's addition of 16p/litre on Petrol or 11p/litre on diesel, so an average of around 13p/litre at the pumps, by 4p i.e. a third, it's not going to make a huge difference to the total price of the litre that we buy.

Higher fuel prices are here to stay unless there is a huge cut in demand worldwide.

No, this petition wasn't started in the height of the pandemic in 2020.
It was started a couple of weeks ago, due to the RAC speaking out about the burden being felt by drivers throughout the UK who are paying £80 for a full 55-litre tank.

Thanks for the link to the RAC numbers, which rather proves the point.
The latest figures (December 2021) show an average pump price of unleaded
at £1.4728 although the wholesale price has dropped to £1.011.
With diesel they show £1.5064 at the pump and £1.0915 wholesale.