F - A renews call for duty freeze IN A SUBMISSION
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to Chancellor Alistair Darling ahead of the Budget on 12 March, the Freight Transport Association (FTA) has once again called on the government to abandon its 2p/lit rise in fuel duty scheduled for April
The FTA points out that the costs to the road transport industry are rising at an annual rate of 8.4% for a 40-tonne artic and 7.5% for 18-tonne rigids — and that this is well above inflation, which is running at 3.4%.
FTA director of external affairs Geoff Dossetter says the submission does not add anything to the information given to Darling at a meeting earlier in the month (`Chancellor 'sympathetic' to operators' cause', CM 14 February).
Instead it is designed to emphasise the message, Dossetter says, that fuel duty is putting huge pressure on the industry.