John Cooper: The long road from urban theory to rural reality requires keeping the fuel duty freeze

John Cooper is the Conservative Member of Parliament for Dumfries and Galloway.

Does Andrew Gilligan enjoy popping out on one of those dinky foldy-up bicycles to pick up a fresh-baked croissant and an oat milk mochaccino?

I enquire because he was on these pages recently proposing Chancellor Rachel Reeves abandon the 14-year-old freeze on fuel duty, and end the 5p price cut delivered under Rishi Sunak in 2022.

I find – generally, not exclusively – that those who suggest such a move and overly-simplistic pay-per-mile plans, live in ‘15-minute communities,’ where jobs, education, healthcare and oven-fresh goodies are within that radius by bike or on foot.

In such urban-progressive paradises, a car is a luxury and not an essential, and Andrew made it all sound like easy money for Treasury coffers as ‘only tiny savings – around £2 per week – for the average motorist’ are delivered at gulping cost to Government.

‘Average’ is doing some heavy lifting there, for in rural constituencies such as my own, many are lucky if their nearest post box is a 15-minute trip away.

Offices, schools, hopsitals – all are so distant that the petrol station is like life support for the car, and even £2 saved per tankful mounts.

Take Drummore, one of the most southerly villages in Scotland, nearer the Irish border than it is to the Scotland/England border.

Our main hospital is in Dumfries over 80 miles distant – so that’s a 160-mile round trip if someone in Drummore needs treatment or diagnostics the nearer community hospital cannot provide.

Public transport? No trains thanks to Dr Beeching, and if you want to go by bus, best leave now if your appointment is tomorrow. Oh, and expect fares to rise if fuel goes up.

And that’s the other issue with abandoning the fuel freeze – it tends to put the price of everything up as hauliers pass on the additional costs.

The key road in Dumfries & Galloway is the A75 EuroRoute. Forget notions of a shining ribbon of tar – it’s known locally as ‘the goat track’ and is swamped by modern traffic volumes and the sheer size of today’s articulated lorries.

This benighted road, ignored by both UK and Scottish Governments, has Britain-wide importance since it services the port of Cairnryan, vital to the economy of Northern Ireland.

My ongoing battle for safety improvements is for another day, but the point is that most everything we all make, buy or sell travels by road at some point.

Fuel up: prices up – at the tills, and at online checkouts.

Fuel prices are volatile as ever and, according to the RAC, are on the rise again this summer without any tinkering from this outgoing (Surely?) Chancellor.

It’s in rural areas, where we’ve paying through the nozzle, that this is felt first as it takes time to filter through to urban areas.

Grant Shapps used this forum to outline a path back to power, arguing the Conservative Party must re-engage with countryside communities.

I agree, and have spent the last couple of weeks at a slew of agricultural shows arguing that Conservatives alone understand the rural way of life.

Yet we throw away that vital message if we back driving fuel prices still higher.

Andrew was on to something he might like to mull further as he enjoys that fancy coffee. He suggested tying duty more closely to wholesale prices, tracking the ups and – hopefully – the downs of oil prices at the pumps.

I’d go further and say we also ought to have a rural de-escaltor to make fuel more affordable for those of us for whom ‘drive to survive’ is daily life, not just a fly-on-the-wall Formula 1 documentary.

Now, where did I put my car keys? I’ve a letter to post…