Robert Jenrick has called on the Government to halve VAT on fuel during a petrol station stunt, claiming Rachel Reeves is “raking it in” and “betraying working people”.
The Reform UK Treasury spokesman was heckled by Green Party activists when he encouraged the Chancellor to implement the policy for three months during a visit to a forecourt in Nottinghamshire.
The petrol station displayed reduced prices of 145.9p per litre for petrol and 178.9 for diesel, which are available to customers on Tuesday, which Reform said is the same as the saving from halving VAT on fuel to 10%.
Ms Reeves, who is attending the International Monetary Fund’s spring meetings in Washington DC, has said families and businesses across Britain are bearing the cost of instability “they did not cause”.
Oil prices jumped back up to about the 100 US dollars (£74) a barrel mark after US talks with Iran broke down and US president Donald Trump made a threat to prevent ships leaving from 3pm on Monday.
Speaking at a Gulf petrol station in Lowdham on Tuesday, Mr Jenrick told the Press Association: “Rachel Reeves is profiteering. She’s raking it in at the moment.
“She’s making tens of millions of pounds extra in tax revenues every day as a result of the increased VAT when you are paying your domestic energy bill, or the fuel duty and the VAT when you’re filling up at the forecourt.
“She should use a bit of that to lighten the load for people at the moment. That is the only thing that we’re calling for. It’s very reasonable.
“Loads of governments around the world are doing exactly the same, from Spain and Portugal to Australia to the Republic of Ireland. Rachel Reeves is acting like some kind of bystander.
“She’s betraying working people by not using a bit of that to lighten the load.”
A group of about six people stood by the petrol station holding signs saying: “Vote Green”, and shouted: “They’re supporting the war in Iran”, while Mr Jenrick and Ashfield MP Lee Anderson announced the price drop.
Mr Jenrick, who defected from the Tories in January, said he believes that drilling for oil and gas in the North Sea would be a solution to rising fuel prices.
He said: “It is madness that we are facing this crisis in our energy security and yet we are not drilling everything that is available.”
Reform has also pledged to reverse the Government’s planned fuel duty hike by scrapping “lunatic” green levies and reversing the fuel duty increase planned by Ms Reeves.
Fuel duty has been frozen since 2011, and was cut by 5p in 2022 in response to Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
At her budget last year, Ms Reeves said the 5p cut would be unwound between September 2026 and March 2027.
A HM Treasury spokesperson said: “Claims of a VAT windfall are misleading and economically illiterate: when fuel and household energy prices rise, people cut back on other spending that would normally be subject to VAT.
“We know motorists are paying more at the pumps because of the war in Iran. This is not our war and that is why the British Government did not join it.
“We are determined to keep costs down for motorists. That’s why we have extended the 5p fuel duty cut and urge for de-escalation.”
