Every time I drive from one end of my North Devon constituency to the other, I’m reminded of just how indispensable our filling stations are, especially with some of the most isolated across Britain. 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.
Rural life is, by definition, more spread out. Rural drivers tend to use more fuel because distances are longer and things are further apart: work, school, shopping, and health services. At the same time, rural pumps are often more expensive anyway, with higher distribution costs and lower competition.
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, just as it has been in remote parts of the Scottish Highlands and Islands, Cumbria, Northumberland, North Yorkshire, and the Isles of Scilly. When the scheme was first introduced under the Coalition, and approval under EU state aid rules was granted 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 in my constituency 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, for local farmers, and for 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. More than a decade of inflation has eaten away at the value of that relief, leaving rural motorists paying more in real terms.
That’s why I argued in the recent Rural Fuel Duty Relief scheme debate in Westminster Hall that the scheme needs an update.
For the government, this would not be an unaffordable commitment, as the scheme is not particularly expensive. Even in the published list of non-structural tax reliefs, the Treasury estimates the Rural Fuel Duty Relief Scheme costs only around £5 million per year, and its uncertainty rating is considered ‘low’.
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. Research by the Rural Services Network in 2023 found that transport difficulties in highly-rural areas “force households into paying high costs for motoring” which contributes significantly to rural poverty. They estimate that for every 10% decrease in public transport speed relative to motoring, the average household pays over £400 more each year for transport. That is essentially a quiet rural penalty.
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 more likely to have multiple filling stations competing on price.
At a time where the government is under pressure over its relationship with rural Britain, and we’ve seen recent U-turns and rows that have left many rural communities feeling like they’re in Westminster’s blind spot, Rural Fuel Duty Relief is exactly the kind of practical, and affordable intervention ministers should be leaning into.
If ministers want a quick way to show they’ve heard the message from rural Britain, the Rural Fuel Duty Relief is an opportunity to make a real difference.
The Rural Fuel Duty Relief Scheme has been left behind
