Robert Jenrick has issued a fresh demand to Rachel Reeves as Britons continue to feel the financial burden of the Iran war at the petrol pumps.
Speaking to GB News, Reform UK’s Treasury Spokesman urged the Chancellor to “do the right thing” and cut fuel duty and VAT.
Calling on the Chancellor to implement an “emergency cut in VAT on petrol and diesel” for a “few months whilst the war is raging in Iran”, Mr Jenrick argued that it will “provide relief” for struggling motorists.
Having slashed prices at a Dover petrol station by 5p, Mr Jenrick told GB News: “A very generous local businessman has agreed to sell petrol here at cost price every Thursday for the next six weeks, knocking the 5p off petrol and diesel that Rachel Reeves could do permanently if she didn’t proceed with the increase in fuel duty.
“People are suffering so much right now with the cost of living, that we want Rachel Reeves to do an emergency cut in VAT on petrol and diesel. That would mean that it would be 12p per litre less for petrol, 14p less per litre for diesel.”
He explained: “Do this for a few months whilst the war is raging in Iran, and provide some relief for people who are suffering, so that it wouldn’t just be this one Reform petrol station where people can get cheaper.
“Prices for every petrol station across the country would be cheaper and that is what people desperately need right now.”
Accusing Rachel Reeves of “behaving like a bystander” on Britain’s fuel crisis, the Reform MP stressed that the Chancellor must “U-turn” on fuel duty before April.
Robert Jenrick has called on Rachel Reeves to lower VAT for drivers amid the Iran war
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GB NEWS
He said: “These people are really suffering at the moment, and Rachel Reeves is behaving like she’s a bystander.
“She’s the Chancellor, she needs to do one of her usual U-turns and say that she’s not going to hike the fuel duty later in the year.
“That’s what’s happening in Spain, in Portugal and the Republic of Ireland. Rachel Reeves, if you’re listening to GB News, do the right thing and drop fuel duty and VAT to lighten the load on everyone at this moment of crisis.”
Delivering his verdict on the UK’s energy security, Mr Jenrick declared that it is an “act of economic harm to the country that we’re not making use of every single drop of oil and gas in the North Sea”.
He told GB News: “Rachel Reeves and Ed Miliband could lift the crazy ban on new licences and get drilling tomorrow, and that would help us with our energy security.
“It would help to create thousands of jobs and protect ones that are in danger of being lost.
Mr Jenrick lowered the prices of fuel for Britons at Whitfield Service Station in Dover, Kent
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PA
“And it would bring in, at the very least, tens of billions of tax revenues, which could help us do things like what we’re proposing today, cut people’s taxes, lower people’s bills, provide some relief to people when they’re finding life so difficult at the moment.”
Taking aim at Ed Miliband, Mr Jenrick swiped at the Energy Secretary for “running the country” instead of the “weak and powerless” Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer.
He stated: “So Ed Miliband is now running the country is he? It does feel like that at the moment.
“It feels like you’ve got this incredibly weak and powerless Prime Minister who is now in hock to Miliband, Angela Rayner on the backbenches, and Zack Polanski.
“The Green Party is also running the country at the moment, and that’s the real danger, that things get even worse and it is hurting people at the moment, because these mad net zero policies are just meaning people’s bills are going up and up and up.”
Mr Jenrick told GB News that Ed Miliband is ‘running the country’
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GB NEWS
Challenging Mr Jenrick’s demand to Ms Reeves to cut VAT and fuel duty, host Miriam Cates questions if it could “actually make the state of our finances even worse and put us on a path to even greater peril”.
Disagreeing with Miriam, Mr Jenrick responded: “Well, Rachel Reeves is coining it in at the moment as a result of the war in Iran.
“There are massive increases in tax revenues from the VAT that you’re paying every time you fill up at the petrol pump, from VAT on domestic heating, if you get your oil tank filled up or your energy bills drop on your mat.
“And Reform is proposing massive cuts to some of the wasteful spending that’s happening at the moment.
“Stop giving benefits to foreign nationals who are living in our country, close the asylum hotels and stop paying foreign aid to rich foreign countries.”