Rural fuel duty relief must rise to protect North Devon drivers, says MP

Why I Took Rural Fuel Duty to Parliament

Every time I drive from one end of North Devon to the other, I’m reminded of just how indispensable our filling stations are.

If you live in a village outside Barnstaple, or on the edges of Exmoor, you don’t have a menu of transport options. For many people, there’s just one option, and you have to drive it yourself.

And, in parts of North Devon, if you don’t fill up at your local, rural filling station, you could be looking at nearly twenty miles to get to the next.

This is why the Rural Fuel Duty Relief has been so vital in areas like ours. When the scheme was first introduced in 2012, the relief was set by the Government at 5 pence per litre.

And the scheme has had a direct impact. Fifteen years ago, Barbrook filling station near Lynton was officially one of the most expensive places in England to fill up. But thanks to the relief, it has stayed competitive on price as a small business, and employs four people all year round, in an area where employment can be highly seasonal.

This tax relief has made a massive difference to the viability of their business, keeping open an essential local service for many rural residents, local farmers, and tourists.

The scheme clearly works. The problem is that it has been left to stand still.

That 5 pence per litre remains unchanged today in 2026, despite more than 30% of its purchasing power being eroded over that time due to inflation.

That’s why I argued in the recent Rural Fuel Duty Relief scheme debate in Westminster Hall that the scheme needs an update.

This would not be an unaffordable commitment, as the scheme is not particularly expensive. It is one of those rare policies that’s both practical and fair: it recognises that drivers in the most remote areas face higher costs through no fault of their own, and it tries to level the playing field.

All of this sits awkwardly alongside recent national decisions on fuel duty. It has now become a feature of Budgets under successive governments, ever since 2011, that Fuel Duty will be frozen. That has benefited motorists right across Britain. Then in March 2022, a further 5p cut in Fuel Duty was introduced and then held in place, even as the value of the Rural Fuel Duty Relief Scheme continued to fall.

In other words, we’ve gone backwards. Many of our most rural taxpayers have effectively increased their support to motorists in some of the best-connected parts of the country, where people are more likely to have public transport options and multiple filling stations competing on price.

At a time where the government is under pressure over its relationship with rural Britain, Rural Fuel Duty Relief is an opportunity to make a real difference.