AA meeting With Treasury

The AA are meeting with ministers from the Treasury to try and delay a fuel price increase. Next month the fuel duty is set to increase by 2p pet litre, and the Automobile Association feels that with recent financial difficulties now is not the right time.

Originally the 2p price increase was meant to take place this time last year, yet the oil price increases at that time meant that the price of fuel was already at record highs.

Even the experts are confused as to why prices remain so high. Petrol costs over 90p a litre and yet crude oil is $45 a barrel. The last time petrol was this price oil was over $68, so why hasn’t the price dropped significantly? Instead the government are seeking to raise prices even further.

The president of the AA warns the government that they should consider that drivers are under threat of serious financial difficulties due to the credit crunch already. With further increases small businesses that rely on a lot of petrol will be severely affected.

For a courier company the price of fuel can really make a large impact on expenditure. Even increases of 0.1p soon mount up to a company using hundreds of litres of fuel every day.

The problem faced by courier companies is that all of these expenditures soon add up, especially when combined with the cost of new vehicles, maintenance, and courier insurance. A small increase on each of these things, as we are seeing, really strains companies during the credit crunch.