18
Rejected
The March 2021 Budget took place the week before our session with HM Treasury and...
Conclusion
The March 2021 Budget took place the week before our session with HM Treasury and HMRC on environmental tax measures. The Budget did not include any particular announcements on green taxes. It did however freeze fuel duty rates for the eleventh year. The Budget said the freeze would support hard-working people across the UK, particularly in more rural communities. The Budget also signalled that fuel duty rates for future years would be considered in the context of the UK’s commitment to reach net zero emissions by 2050.32 The previous Budget in March 2020 had also said that fuel duty rates will be considered alongside measures that are needed to help meet the UK’s net zero commitment.33 The government’s decisions on fuel duty rates highlights a key tension. There is a need for long-term planning, but Budgets are annual and led by day-to-day politics and issues.34
Government Response Summary
The government disagrees with setting a timetable for consulting on options for replacing declining fossil fuel revenues before the next Budget, stating it would pre-empt policy decisions, but acknowledges the need to plan for consultation in the future.
Government Response
Rejected
Government Response
Rejected
HM Government
Rejected
The government disagrees with the Committee’s recommendation. The government agrees on the need to consider the implications for tax revenue from net zero and the need over time to set out a plan for the replacement of fuel duty revenues but disagrees with the Committee's specific recommendation to set out a timetable before the next Budget, since that would pre-empt policy decisions which are for Ministers to take at the relevant time. The interim Net Zero Review report in December 2020 highlighted that structural changes in the economy related to net zero will have fiscal implications. Much of the revenue from fossil fuel-based taxes is likely to be eroded during the transition to a net zero economy, the most significant of which are motoring taxes such as fuel duty. As set out by the Prime Minister in the Ten Point Plan for a Green Industrial Revolution, whilst the UK moves forward with the transition away from petrol and diesel cars and vans, the government will need to ensure that revenue from motoring taxes keeps pace with this change, so that the government can continue to fund the first-class public services and infrastructure that people and families across the UK expect. The government will ensure it plans for sufficiently early and broad consultation with different parts of society.
Source
Committee
Public Accounts Committee
Inquiry
Environmental tax measures
Report
Fifty-Fifth Report - Environmental tax measures
28 Apr 2021
HC 937
Addressee Bodies
HM Treasury
Timeline
Recommendation age
5.3 yrs
Report published
28 Apr 2021