‘It is time electric vehicle users started paying their fair share’

The 2025 Budget is proposing to increase excise duty on motor fuel in line with predicted inflation of 3.2%.

This would see it rise by 2.7p to 86.8p per litre.

Although 2024 income from excise duty on motor fuel is forecast to be £22m. – £1.2m. greater than this year’s budget estimate – Policy & Resources said within its 2025 Budget proposals that there was a decline in fuel volumes year on year, partly as a result of increased use of vehicles which did not use motor fuel as an energy source.

The 2025 Budget estimate for income from excise duty on motor fuel is set at £22.5m., allowing for a 1% volume decrease compared to 2024.

While the proposed duty rise has not come as a surprise to fuel providers, with duty increasing by inflation every year, they were concerned that motorists were being unfairly burdened in comparison with drivers of electric vehicles.

Whiteway Motors owner Andre Whiteway said it annoyed him that electric vehicles were ‘getting away’ without paying for anything.

‘Motorists are effectively subsidising all these electric cars, there’s got to be a tax on them,’ he said.

‘We are basically paying duty for them as well. It’s a question of fairness.’

Trev’s Motorcycles owner Trevor Hockey said either an annual road tax or a ‘substantial’ first registration fee should be placed on electric vehicles.

‘Over half the price of fuel now is tax, meanwhile electric vehicles pay nothing.’

He added that many of his customers had complained about this.

But both Mr Whiteway and Mr Hockey predicted that the popularity of electric vehicles would soon be on the wane. Mr Hockey said that customers he had lost to electric vehicles had started to return.

‘I think it’s all a con,’ he said. ‘The argument that is always given for electric vehicles is the reduction in pollution, but the pollution that comes with the mining for the lithium batteries, it’s just shifting the pollution to wherever the mining is taking place.’

Forest Road Garage managing director Robert Cornelius, who is also president of the Guernsey Motor Traders Association, acknowledged P&R’s explanation on fuel volumes, and said that the increase in fuel duty was in line with what he expected.

But he questioned why it had to be motorists who paid more.

‘If motorists are paying more, then why aren’t others? Maybe they should be,’ he said.

Diesel for marine and other non-road use would remain exempt from duty, and the concessionary rate of duty on petrol for marine use would be 58.9p per litre from 1 January.