New Chancellor Rishi Sunak has been warned by new “blue collar” Tory MPs against raising fuel duty.
They said that “clobbering” voters including many who backed the Tories for the first time at the election - would “send the wrong message”.
The group, including more than a dozen newly-elected MPs, have been alarmed by reports the Chancellor is considering ending the nine-year-long freeze on the levy.
Motoring groups have warned, as they do every year, that an attempt to hit drivers in the Budget on March 11 would be a mistake.
In their letter, the MPs told Mr Sunak: “If the decision was taken to raise taxes on fuel, hard-working people and businesses in blue collar communities - many of which lent us their support at the General Election for the first time in generations - will suffer.
“We appreciate that levelling up local transport in blue collar communities across the country is firmly at the top of the PM’s agenda.
“As a Yorkshire MP, we know you will, too. But clobbering these communities with a tax rise in our first Budget would send the wrong message about this Government’s priorities.”
Fuel duty has been kept at 57.95p per litre for petrol and diesel since 2011. Last year's freeze alone will cost the Treasury more than £4billion over five years.
Mr Sunak is thought to have abandoned a planned tax grab on high-earners’ pensions after a Tory backlash.
But we show that avoiding any day-to-day spending cuts beyond next year would likely require either tax rises or abandoning the fiscal promises made in the Conservative manifesto.
