When fuel prices start rising, communities like ours in West Cumbria feel it straight away.
For many families here, driving isn’t optional. It’s how people get to work, take the kids to school, get to hospital appointments, and keep small businesses running. And unlike many parts of the country, a lot of homes here also rely on heating oil. So when global oil prices climb, it hits us twice – at the pump and at home.
In recent weeks oil prices have been moving upwards again because of instability and conflict in the Middle East. That’s something none of us locally can control, but it does feed through quickly into the cost of petrol, diesel and heating oil here in Cumbria.
What people rightly struggle to understand, though, is when prices vary wildly between petrol stations only a few miles apart.
I recently looked at petrol prices along the corridor between Workington, Whitehaven, Cleator Moor, Egremont and Cockermouth. Prices ranged from around 136p per litre to as high as 152p for petrol and from 148p up to 167p per litre for diesel.
That’s a gap of 16-19p per litre. For a typical family car, that means you could be paying around £10 more just depending on where you fill up.
At a time when families are already watching every penny, that just isn’t right. Where petrol stations are charging significantly more than others nearby, they should be prepared to explain why. And where there’s no good reason for it, they should bring their prices down.
I’ve launched a Fair Fuel campaign locally and submitted evidence to the Competition and Markets Authority so they can look at whether competition in rural fuel markets is working properly. People in West Cumbria should not be treated as a captive market.
The cost of heating oil is also hitting thousands of local households hard. The Government is taking these rising costs seriously. The Chancellor hauled in fuel companies last week and made clear we expect fair pricing, and we’ve warned retailers and suppliers that if there is evidence of price gouging the authorities won’t hesitate to investigate.
We’re also stepping in with financial support for households. In addition to the cut to everyone’s energy bills from April through our removal of levies and the lower price cap and the £150 Warm Home Discount for thousands of the lowest income households, a new £53 million fund is coming for households who rely on off-grid fuel. Contact my office to find out more.
My job as your MP is to stand up for you and make sure you get a fair deal. I’ll keep pushing fuel retailers, energy companies, regulators and government to make sure motorists and households in West Cumbria are not paying over the odds.
Back my Fair Fuel campaign at joshmacalister.uk/fair-fuel
Josh MacAlister MP 