Fuel duty hits the poorest hardest In reality, fuel duty is a tax on everything, as it pushes up the cost of public transport and the road haulage network, on which every other business depends. That is why the heart of this debate must be the figures published by the ONS in November 2011. They proved that fuel taxes are shockingly regressive. Yes, fuel duty raises 5 per cent of all HMRC's revenue, but it is hardest on the poorest Brits. Two years ago, RAC figures showed that an ordinary car-owner in my constituency of Harlow was spending £1,700 a year on filling up the family car. Sadly, this week, the RAC Foundation have confirmed that this trend has got worse, not better. Now 800,000 British families spend one quarter of their income on running a car. The poorest decile of car-owning households in the UK are mired in transport poverty, forced to shell out at least 27 per cent of their disposable income on buying and running a vehicle. Of a weekly budget of £167, the very poorest Brits are spending £44 on car-costs. This is a national scandal. Given that two thirds of the pump-price of petrol and diesel is tax, this is largely a crisis of our own making. All sensible people agree that taxes should be broadly progressive: that the wealthy should stump up a more generous whack than everyone else. But the RAC Foundation and the ONS have now confirmed what many of us have long suspected. Namely, that fuel duty is an outdated, flat-rate, regressive, and job-destroying measure. It urgently needs reform. Of course, it was a Liberal Government in 1909, and not a Conservative one, which first burdened us with the plague of fuel duty. At the time, David Lloyd-George rather courageously pledged that all the money raised would be used for building new roads. That is history. But, it is has been the failure of every single political party - sadly including some Conservative governments - that the level of fuel duty has spiralled out of control. One exception to this historical trend is George Osborne. People always go on about how the Government should focus on the cost of living. But, Mr Osborne he has cancelled or delayed every single fuel duty rise that Labour left behind in their 2009 and 2010 Budgets - and he has done this at a time of immense strain on the public finances. As a result, petrol and diesel are now 10p cheaper per litre than otherwise they would have been. According to the AA, that has meant £6 million more for families to spend in Britain's real economy, every single day; £2.2 billion more annually left in Britain's collective pocket. This is not just helpful for our economy. Given the crippling impact of fuel on low-income families, it is the right policy for any Government with a social conscience. Taken together, the evidence is overwhelming. The LSE, and other universities, have published research showing that fuel costs are adding to Britain's dole-queues. 75 per cent of transport business failures are now blamed on rip-off fuel prices. The AA has also shown that many low-income families are now having to choose between buying food, or filling up at the pumps. Given everything that the Chancellor has done to cut fuel taxes, I hope that he will scrap the rise in fuel duty that is planned for September 2013. Forget Eastleigh, and the daily drift of opinion polls. Getting petrol and diesel costs down will reduce poverty, help to boost jobs, and secure the GDP growth that we so desperately need. Robert Halfon is MP for Harlow