Re: Rising cost of living
 

I think that’s Pierre’s point.

It’s insincere of Government to pretend the system incentivises “greener” motoring if in the event everyone did, in the long run, it this leaves a funding shortfall that inevitably comes back to “green” motorists to pay.

A pay as you go system would be interesting, and could vary from relying on “honesty”/MOT figures (I know these don’t apply to brand new cars for a period), to wildly complex using “big brother” GPS/Bluetooth technologies.

I’m not endorsing the latter but in theory you could allocate every driver an “essential” mileage to cover “necessary” journeys with a sliding scale for journeys over and above (e.g. based on alternative options). GPS data covering habitual journeys could be used to confirm that “essential” journeys specific to a driver are habitually undertaken in line with the rationale for them. I’d imagine there’d be outrage but I was just thinking through the tech in this instance.

Re: Rising cost of living
 

Duty on fuel is a form of mileage tax, bigger/greedier vehicles also pay more but they also tend to wear roads out more.


It can't be a surprise that as EV ownership grows and becomes more common those owners will have to contribute to the "road fund".

Re: Rising cost of living
 

I have to pay duty on fuel, to mow my lawn, power my leaf blower and use my chainsaw, and I never take them on the road! well hardly ever.

Re: Rising cost of living
 

I pay fuel duty on my boat diesel it's all a big con

Re: Rising cost of living
 

You can thank the EU for that … HMG succumbed to years of pressure for tax harmonisation on use of red diesel in boats back in 2013. It had not wanted to make the change and resisted earlier ‘requests’ from Brussels.

If they had continued to hold out, your duty exemption would be about to end now anyway. Red diesel is to be almost entirely banned on environmental grounds.

Re: Rising cost of living
 

So, we're not in the EU anymore, change it back and reclaim our sunlit uplands or is that not how it works? ;)

Re: Rising cost of living
 

Governments may be reluctant to introduce certain taxes if they impinge on their voter base (I’m going to stick my neck out and suggest that boat-owning is more likely a monied, and therefore tory, pursuit). However I think we all know how willing governments are to ditch taxes once they’re established and people get used to them. ;)

Apparently when income tax was reintroduced in 1842 it was meant to be temporary, but the Crimean war caused some balance of payments problems and we’ve been stuck with it ever since. Plus ça change ….

Re: Rising cost of living
 

Using it on boats may still be ok.
I could not find a better definition of "some boats".

Re: Rising cost of living
 

That’s because it depends what you use the red diesel for. Unlike a diesel car, where it’s illegal even to have the red diesel in your tank, on a boat you can put red diesel in the tank, because you can still use it duty free for generating heat and power from your engine. Only the fuel you actually use for propulsion attracts duty and you have to declare to HMRC what proportion of the fuel is used for propulsion and pay the duty separately. Reams and reams of guidance have been written on how to do that, and what happens if you make a false declaration and then get audited by HMRC.

Re: Rising cost of living
 

The calculation is pre agreed for the inland waterways 40% heating- 60% propulsion, the problem is the fuel stations set a ridiculously high rate for the fuel so after the deductions it's often cheaper to buy road diesel from tesco


in september diesel was around £183 at tesco, on the river it was £198 after deductions

Gas oil at local garage £150

Re: Rising cost of living
 

The thing is the on river fuel suppliers probably know Tesco don't have many floating fuel stations so feel the threat from the supermarkets is quite small. They probably also know you'd need to be buying lots of diesel at cheaper Tesco prices to offset the cost of getting your boat to the local supermarket forecourt and back, unless the supermarket has extra extra long reach hoses!

Re: Rising cost of living
 

5 gallon drums in the boot of the car, Tesco is 1 mile from the marina, and i have to go there for food supplies

Re: Rising cost of living
 

My second Cost of Living payment is pending ready to go in tomorrow. Happy days

Re: Rising cost of living
 

Happier days would be if you didn't need a cost of living payment. Increasingly few working, loads retiring early, and no one prepared to work for crap wages. Vital workers told to bugger off back to their 'own country'.

A nation of pensioners and benefit claimants and a collapsing economy.. The sunlit uplands we were promised are here.

Re: Rising cost of living
 

Yeah because then my life would not have been a living hell for the majority of it

I certainly hope you were not casting aspersions there