Will the chancellor risk the wrath of 'white van man'?

The prime minister and the chancellor have been asked repeatedly about how various taxes and duties might be changed in the Budget - and they have repeated their refusal to "write the Budget in advance". Formally, we will have to wait until Wednesday 30 October to learn the terrible truth, but that hasn't stopped the speculation - some inspired, some less so.

- SEAN O'GRADY

Fuel duty on petrol and diesel is the latest focus of media attention...

Is fuel duty going to go up?

Almost certainly, and the case for this is strong. The rate of fuel duty hasn’t gone up much since 2010, and was even cut by 5p per litre by Rishi Sunak in his 2022 Budget, to help ease the costs to consumers of the energy crisis. That cut has since been kept in place, despite oil prices having subsided somewhat in the interim. Rachel Reeves could easily justify reversing what was supposed to be a “temporary” measure. That would raise about £2bn – a tidy sum.

She could even go further. Compared with the level prevailing in, say, 2005, fuel duty is much lower in real terms, and could be increased to as much as 80p just to bring it back to where it was 20 years ago. The resulting jump of more than 20p per litre would no doubt bring a backlash, but also some much more meaningful revenue, and the rise could be graduated.

It’s worth reminding ourselves that the old “fuel duty escalator” was introduced by John Major’s Conservative administration in 1993, and pushed duty up by 3 per cent and then 6 per cent a year over inflation throughout the 1990s as part of the drive to reduce pollution and congestion.