Fair Fuel UK

Category: Campaign Group

Fair Fuel UK is a Kent-based lobbying group that campaigns to reduce charges on diesel and petrol powered vehicles, most notably fuel duty. It claims to have the support of 140 MPs and “key media”, as well as 1.7 million members of the public.

The group is led by political lobbyist Howard Cox, who regularly appears in the media and is becoming more involved in politics. On May 10, 2023, Cox announced that he would run as the Reform candidate in the 2024 London mayoral election.¹Ryan Sabey. “Drivers hero takes on Sadiq Khan to be London Mayor – vowing to ditch hated ULEZ and keep fuel duty taxes down,” The Sun, May 9, 2023. Archived May 15, 2023. Archive URL: https://archive.ph/ZVWsV His platform included promises to scrap London’s Ultra Low Emission Zone (ULEZ) scheme and remove Low Traffic Neighbourhoods (LTNs) in the city.

The group has frequently cast doubt on the health impacts of air pollution and argues that diesel vehicles have been unfairly demonised. It strongly opposes charging Clean Air Zones (CAZ) and claims there are more effective solutions such as fuel additives and bioethanol, which campaigners have rejected as inadequate.

Fair Fuel says it has “saved drivers over £100bn in planned tax hikes in duty and VAT through constructive and objective campaigning” since 2010. It opposes what it calls the “perennial demonisation of van drivers, hauliers and motorists”, according to its website.

Motoring journalist and former Top Gear presenter Quentin Willson co-led Fair Fuel UK with Cox until September 2021, when he cut ties with the group over its “lack of environmental sensibilities” and accused it spreading “old urban myths” about electric vehicles.

The group’s high profile allies in parliament include former Conservative Home Secretary Priti Patel and Conservative MP Craig Mackinlay, who chairs the Net Zero Scrutiny Group. Another vocal supporter in parliament has been former Deputy Chairman of the Conservative Party and Harlow MP Robert Halfon, who co-organised a petition against fuel duty rises with the group when it first launched in 2011.

In the 2019 general election, the group encouraged its supporters to vote for the Conservative Party, warning that a victory for Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour Party would bring in a “pathologically anti-motorist political era”.

APPG on Fair Fuel for Motorists and Hauliers

As of June 2023, Fair Fuel administers the All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Fair Fuel for UK Motorists and UK Hauliers, which aimed to “represent major issues that impact on UK drivers, from motorists to hauliers”. It lists examples including “fuel taxation, congestion charges, ULEZ/CAZs, parking costs, roads investment, fairer treatment for carbon based fuelled vehicle owners, solutions to lower emissions, cleaner fuel incentives, alternative technology options and transparent pricing at the fuel pumps”. Howard Cox is listed as the APPG’s public enquiry point.

The APPG is chaired by Conservative MP Craig Mackinlay, who also chairs the Net Zero Scrutiny Group in parliament. The vice chairs as of June 2023 are listed as Martin Vickers (Conservative), Graham Stringer (Labour), and Sammy Wilson (Democratic Unionist Party), and officers are listed as former Home Secretary Priti Patel (Conservative), Sir Greg Knight (Conservative), Julian Knight (Independent), Karl McCartney (Conservative), and Jonathan Gullis (Conservative).²Register of All-Party Parliamentary Groups, June 28 2023.

It called for the creation of a consumer watchdog to monitor fuel prices at petrol stations, according to Fair Fuel’s website, which still promotes the campaign.

Funding

Fair Fuel is funded through donations from supporters, as well as from its “founding backers” the Freight Transport Association (now Logistics UK) and the Road Haulage Association (RHA).

It also fundraises by selling vehicle stickers and has taken sponsorship from Ultimum5, a company that sells a fuel catalyst that it argues could be an “emissions solution” for internal combustion engines.

The group has previously received funding from the RAC, haulage industry body the Association of Pallet Networks, and Liquid Gas UK, a trade association for liquified petroleum gas and biopropane renewable gas companies.

The RAC told DeSmog it terminated its relationship with Fair Fuel “around four years ago” after it found its “views were not always aligned”.

Air Pollution Lobbying

Fair Fuel has frequently expressed doubt about the impacts of both air pollution and climate change.

It says on its website that “emotive and dubious air quality claims” are causing vehicles to lose resale value and describes emissions charging zones as being “based on flawed health data”, listing air quality policy as one of its three main campaigning areas.

A page on its website titled “Air Pollution Lies” claims that “the effect of air pollution is literally un-measurable as a health factor. As such, while reducing pollution is desirable for many reasons, the unmitigated attack on road users is not validly based on any health data.”³“the effect of air pollution is literally un-measurable as a health factor. As such, while reducing pollution is desirable for many reasons, the unmitigated attack on road users is not validly based on any health data.” Air Pollution Lies page on FairFuelUK.com. Archive URL: https://web.archive.org/web/20230803172105/http://www.fairfueluk.com/Air-Polution-Lies.html

Fair Fuel’s Quentin Willson has claimed air pollution is responsible for shortening life expectancy by only half a day per year in Europe, despite a recent study estimating the figure to be three years globally, and one and a half in the UK.

The group has also shared reports by the climate science-denying Global Warming Policy Foundation, while its founder Howard Cox has criticised the BBC for “worshipping at the altar of Greta Thunberg”, stating that the public needs to “hear both sides of the climate change argument”.

Clean Air Zones

Fair Fuel opposes policies that involve charging high-polluting vehicles for entering certain parts of cities, including the expansion of London’s Ultra Low Emission Zone (ULEZ) and what it calls “unnecessary” congestion zones.

It has also criticised clean air campaigners, calling the environmental law charity ClientEarth “rich” and “celebrity backed”, the activist group Extinction Rebellion “fanatical”, and the UK’s Green Party “uncompromising”.

Fair Fuel strongly criticised plans by Boris Johnson’s government to increase walking and cycling in cities amid the coronavirus pandemic, claiming they would create “no go zones for the internal combustion engine”.

In a 2017 interview with ITV News, Fair Fuel UK founder Howard Cox claimed CAZs would have no effect on pollution levels.

He said nine out of ten respondents to polls conducted by the group “said they’ve got no choice but to continue driving. They’ve got to take this on the chin. What’s going to change? They will have to go to work and they’ll keep on doing that. So it won’t reduce emissions at all.”

Cox argued that diesel drivers were being “unfairly demonised” and “potentially being asked to take the tax burden for emissions in our cities, which is unwarranted.” He claimed “only 11% of NOx emissions come from diesel cars.”

Later in the news segment, Cox claimed that modern diesel vehicles were “very clean indeed” and that the latest Euro 6 standards were “very clean compared to the Euro 4s”. Research has found the latest diesel models still produce significant levels of pollution when tested in real-world conditions.

Fair Fuel says it supports “effective ways to lower emissions” but “not through tax hikes”.

It has recommended “alternative solutions” such as fuel additives, diesel particulate filters and bioethanol. These have been rejected as inadequate by clean transport campaigners and compared to “alchemists trying to turn lead into gold”.

Low Traffic Neighbourhoods

Fair Fuel UK and its founder Howard Cox have made a number of statements opposing the roll-out of low traffic neighbourhoods (LTNs), many of which were implemented by local authorities after the government introduced an Emergency Active Travel Fund during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020.

In March 2021, Cox tweeted in support of Consevative councillors in Greenwich calling for a halt to the roll-out of additional LTNs and other traffic measures across the borough, adding that “it seems there is no national LTN consistent policy”.

In January 2021, Craig MacKinlay MP, Chair of the All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) for Fair Fuel for UK Motorists and Hauliers, told BBC Radio 4 that low traffic schemes had been implemented in “ridiculous places” and that he was “not convinced” that the £250 million allocated to the schemes was “money well spent”. MacKinlay also commented on a judge’s ruling against Transport for London’s (TfL) Streetspace scheme, which introduced LTNs among other measures designed to promote active travel during the COVID-19 pandemic, saying: “I think the judgement in London has highlighted very well some of the things that are going wrong”. 

In December 2020, Fair Fuel UK was accused by campaign group Cycling UK of including leading questions about cycling and low traffic neighbourhoods in its “Annual Road User Opinion Survey”. Cycling UK said the Fair Fuel UK survey was designed around a number of “leading questions” about the introduction of cycle lanes during the pandemic and whether respondents approved of low traffic neighbourhoods.

In November 2020, Fair Fuel UK, along with the Alliance of British Drivers, the Road Haulage Association, and the APPG for Fair Fuel for UK Motorists and Hauliers, wrote to Transport Secretary Grant Shapps calling on him to halt and roll back active transport measures – including LTNs – that had been introduced in response to the pandemic. 

The letter, which was co-signed by APPG Chair Craig Mackinlay, Vice Chair Robert Halfon, and twelve other Conservative MPs including Sir David Amess, Steve Baker, and Andrew Bridgen,  said: “UK’s 37m drivers, the millions of constituents across the country are feeling victimised by draconian charges and road restrictions initiated by local authorities and funded it seems, by the Department of Transport. The anger out there is palpable”. 

Fair Fuel UK and Cox have appeared a number of times in the UK media criticising low traffic neighbourhoods. 

In November 2020, Cox told Gloucestershire Live that the government was implementing “anti-driver” policies. He said that while drivers support cycling, they do not support “virtue signalling road blocks or new cycle lanes eating into existing roads”, arguing that such measures increase congestion, emissions and “economic damage to white vans and hauliers in particular”. That same month, in an interview with The Daily Express, Cox said that LTNs and businesses “cannot work alongside each other”.

Also in November 2020, Cox tweeted regarding the May 2021 London Mayoral race that Conservative candidate Shaun Bailey “must be elected to stop the [sic] @SadiqKhan’s insanity”. In the same tweet, Cox said that Transport Secretary Grant Shapps was going to announce “yet more millions for more UK LTN/Cycle lanes” and that the Conservatives were “promoting more congestion/emissions & economic ruin”.

In a September 2020 Daily Mail article about cycle lanes introduced in London as part of the government’s Emergency Active Travel Fund, Cox said that most transport political advisers are “young, fit, well-off, urban-based Lycra-wearing cyclists” and that ”no pro-motoring groups are included in any discussions”. He added: “Every single driver wants to breathe clean air too, but there is no need to hit them in the pocket, ban them or block their freedom to drive by narrowing the roads for the benefit of a minority of road users who do not pay any [vehicle] tax”.

Cox also signed and shared a petition against the Arlington Road LTN, introduced in September 2020 in the London borough of Camden, and has actively opposed LTNs on social media.

In July 2020, Cox was quoted in The Daily Express saying:  “This Government’s ignorance will decimate businesses and the economies of our major towns and cities and is a naive knee jerk response to those emotive driven, well financed, so called environmental groups based in the London bubble”. 

Fuel Duty

Fair Fuel’s campaign against fuel duty increases, through which it claims to have saved drivers £100bn, has been described by the Guardian as “one of the most successful lobbying campaigns in modern political history, successfully diverting billions from the Treasury with barely a squeak”.

The campaign has been frequently covered by The Sun alongside the newspaper’s own “Keep it Down” campaign, which has similar aims. In 2020, it claimed credit for pressuring the government into cancelling a planned fuel duty rise in the upcoming Budget.

Fair Fuel claims that UK drivers are the “highest taxed motorists in the world” and has commissioned reports from the Centre for Economics and Business Research (CEBR) into the impacts of fuel duty on the economy. A 2016 report claimed that a 3p cut in fuel duty would lead to a £1 billion boost to the economy and the creation of 8,000 jobs. CEBR describes itself as an independent economics consultancy, despite its founder and deputy chairman Douglas McWilliams congratulating FairFuel in March 2020 on keeping fuel duty frozen for the tenth consecutive year.

Key Arguments in Order of Prominence

1. Car drivers are being unfairly targeted and only cause a small proportion of emissions
2. Cutting fuel duty will create a boost for the economy and thousands of jobs
3. The link between air pollution and health is exaggerated and being used to justify charging zones
4. Diesel is being unfairly demonised
5. The latest Euro 6 diesel vehicles are far cleaner than previous models
6. Clean Air Zones will have no effect on pollution because people have to continue driving
7. Alternative solutions such as fuel additives and bioethanol should be used instead of emissions charging
8. The increase in the London congestion charge will destroy many small and medium sized businesses

Areas Active

Bath: Fair Fuel wrote a joint letter to the council opposing plans for a CAZ, together with the Road Haulage Association, the Alliance of British Drivers and the TaxPayers’ Alliance. The letter argued a CAZ could cause a decline in tourism and increase costs for taxis, coach companies and hauliers, leading to job losses and businesses “going bust”. It also stated that CAZs had been “shown to be ineffective, economically damaging and regressive” and suggested a tram system could be a better solution to tackling air pollution.

Leeds: Fair Fuel tweeted in 2018 that a planned CAZ in Leeds could “put Leeds hauliers out of business”.

London: Quoted in The Sun, Fair Fuel’s Howard Cox criticised Mayor of London Sadiq Khan’s decision to increase the congestion charge following the easing of coronavirus lockdown rules in May 2020.

Cox described the move as a “chronic anti-driver policy” that would “kill off many of London’s struggling small and medium sized businesses, the haulage industry, van distributors and hardworking motorists”.

Fair Fuel’s Quentin Willson has previously argued that private car drivers are being unfairly targeted in London, describing them as a “relatively narrow band of polluters at 11 percent of NOx [nitrogen oxides]”. Official figures show more than three quarters of roadside NOx concentrations, where most people come into contact with poor air quality, are caused by road transport.

Fair Fuel’s Howard Cox has also been a vocal critic of low traffic neighbourhoods, calling them “anti-driver”. Cox has been supportive of efforts to roll back or prevent LTNs in Camden and Greenwich, and signalled that LTNs were a key issue in the London Mayoral race.

APPG for Fair Fuel for UK Motorists and Hauliers Chair Craig MacKinlay has criticised the widespread rollout of LTNs during the COVID-19 pandemic and said that a judgment in London regarding the Mayor’s Streetspace scheme, which introduced active travel measures including LTNs in response to the pandemic, “highlighted very well some of the things that are going wrong” with low traffic neighbourhoods.

Key Actions

January 16, 2023

In response to a consultation about the extension of the Ultra Low Emission Zone (ULEZ) scheme in London, almost 5,000 responses were thrown out after it was discovered they were “so-called ‘copy and paste’ email responses opposed to the ULEZ extension – organised by the pro-motorist Fair Fuel campaign group”. 

The BBC reported that when the copy-pasted responses from Fair Fuel UK supporters and a survey by YouGov were factored into the tally, the percentage of respondents opposed to the ULEZ extension reduced from 67 percent to 59 percent.⁴Tim Donovan. “London ULEZ: Mayor’s officials accused of manipulating plans,” BBC News, January 17, 2023. Archived January 24, 2023. Archive URL: https://archive.ph/7y2pd

Speaking to the Telegraph about the exclusion of Fair Fuel responses to the consultation, Howard Cox, head of Fair Fuel UK, claimed that “excluding his group’s votes ‘is not only contemptible, but also possibly unlawful’”, and that London mayor Sadiq Khan “must be subject to an immediate independent public enquiry as to his immoral behaviour in the way he has implemented the Ulez expansion.”⁵Oliver Gill. “Sadiq Khan accused of manipulating Ulez poll after excluding thousands of votes,” the Telegraph, January 16, 2023. Archived January 23, 2023. Archive URL: https://archive.ph/9vq0d 

Cox continued: “He deceitfully and consciously excluded 5,000 supporters of FairFuelUK, and their legitimate responses to the Ulez consultation because they objected.”  

Cox also appeared on TalkTV to speak to host Julia Hartley-Brewer about the consultation.⁶“London mayor Sadiq Khan is accused of manipulating ULEZ information after a consultation showed most respondents opposed the scheme. FairFuelUK founder Howard Cox calls on Keir Starmer “to suspend him from the Labour party” for “contemptible” behaviour.,” tweet from user @TalkTV, January 17, 2023. Archived February 3, 2023. Archive URL: https://archive.ph/8IpKr ⁷“Today I have written to @Keir_Starmer politely requesting he suspend @SadiqKhan from the @UKLabour Party. A proud party should not have a member flouting democracy and unlawfully manipulating a public consultation process to suit his personal political agenda @Councillorsuzie,” tweet from user @HowardCCox, January 17, 2023. Retrieved from twitter.com. Archived February 3, 2023. Archive URL: https://archive.ph/I45k5

September 2022

After the closure of a public consultation on London’s new Ultra Low Emissions Zone (ULEZ), Lewisham East MP Janet Daby accused Fair Fuel UK of attempting to “undermine the integrity of this consultation and consign more Londoners to a lifetime of health issues”.

Fair Fuel UK said that more than 5,000 people responded to the public consultation with a template the organisation had pre-filled, asking London Mayor Sadiq Khan to cancel the ULEZ expansion.

In response to Daby’s comments, Fair Fuel UK founder Howard Cox said:

“Over 5,000 in a matter of hours showed their opposition to this cash-grabbing, anti-driver administration in London.

“This is not dirty tricks; this is democracy representing honesty not idealism.”

August 2021

Fair Fuel produced and paid for a report published by the APPG for Fair Fuel for UK Motorists and Hauliers which opposed the UK government’s ban on new petrol and diesel cars from 2030. The report attacked cost of the ban, questioned the science behind it, and warned of public unrest if it the ban were to go ahead.  

The report featured an article and quotes from Fair Fuel UK founder Howard Cox, the APPG’s public enquiry point, and quoted Steve Baker MP and APPG vice-chair Graham Stringer MP, both trustees of the climate science-denying Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF), and Lord Peter Lilley, a former GWPF trustee.

November 2020

Fair Fuel, alongside the APPG for Fair Fuel for UK Motorists and Hauliers, the RHA, and the ABD, wrote a letter to Transport Secretary Grant Shapps calling for him to halt the roll-out of low traffic measures designed to promote active travel during the COVID-19 pandemic. The letter also called on Shapps to reverse the planned expansion of London’s Congestion Charge Zone to the North and South Circular roads. 

March 5, 2020

Fair Fuel released a poll, covered by The Sun, showing that nearly half of drivers who voted Conservative at the 2019 general election would abandon the party at the next election if fuel duty was increased at the upcoming Budget.

June 28, 2017

Fair Fuel’s Quentin Willson wrote an article for London’s Evening Standard arguing that car drivers were being targeted despite only being a “relatively narrow band of polluters at 11% of NOx”. He also called for an “Air Quality Working Party, free from vested interests, to scientifically determine where the greatest levels of particulate and nitrogen dioxide pollutants really come from and how to reduce them in the short to medium term”.

Associated Politicians

Conservative

• Craig Mackinlay (Chair of APPG on Fair Fuel for UK Motorists and UK Haulers)
• Martin Vickers (APPG vice chair)
• Priti Patel (APPG officer)
• Sir Greg Knight (APPG officer)
• Karl McCartney (APPG officer)
• Jonathan Gullis (APPG officer)
• Jack Lopresti
• Douglas Ross
• Julian Knight
• Robert Halfon
• Peter Aldous
• Gordon Henderson
• David Amess
• Steve Baker
• Bob Blackman
• Andrew Bridgen
• Robert Goodwill
• Jonathan Lord
• Andrew Rosindell
• Greg Smith
• Henry Smith
• James Sunderland

Labour

• Graham Stringer (APPG vice chair)
• Mary Glindon
• Rosie Cooper

SNP

• Martyn Day
• Angus MacNeil
• Alan Brown

DUP

• Sammy Wilson (APPG vice chair)

Related Organisations

• Road Haulage Association
• Freight Transport Association
• Alliance of British Drivers
• Motorcycle Action Group
• Reform Party
  

Resources

• 1
  Ryan Sabey. “Drivers hero takes on Sadiq Khan to be London Mayor – vowing to ditch hated ULEZ and keep fuel duty taxes down,” The Sun, May 9, 2023. Archived May 15, 2023. Archive URL: https://archive.ph/ZVWsV
• 2
  Register of All-Party Parliamentary Groups, June 28 2023.
• 3
  “the effect of air pollution is literally un-measurable as a health factor. As such, while reducing pollution is desirable for many reasons, the unmitigated attack on road users is not validly based on any health data.” Air Pollution Lies page on FairFuelUK.com. Archive URL: https://web.archive.org/web/20230803172105/http://www.fairfueluk.com/Air-Polution-Lies.html
• 4
  Tim Donovan. “London ULEZ: Mayor’s officials accused of manipulating plans,” BBC News, January 17, 2023. Archived January 24, 2023. Archive URL: https://archive.ph/7y2pd
• 5
  Oliver Gill. “Sadiq Khan accused of manipulating Ulez poll after excluding thousands of votes,” the Telegraph, January 16, 2023. Archived January 23, 2023. Archive URL: https://archive.ph/9vq0d
• 6
  “London mayor Sadiq Khan is accused of manipulating ULEZ information after a consultation showed most respondents opposed the scheme. FairFuelUK founder Howard Cox calls on Keir Starmer “to suspend him from the Labour party” for “contemptible” behaviour.,” tweet from user @TalkTV, January 17, 2023. Archived February 3, 2023. Archive URL: https://archive.ph/8IpKr
• 7
  “Today I have written to @Keir_Starmer politely requesting he suspend @SadiqKhan from the @UKLabour Party. A proud party should not have a member flouting democracy and unlawfully manipulating a public consultation process to suit his personal political agenda @Councillorsuzie,” tweet from user @HowardCCox, January 17, 2023. Retrieved from twitter.com. Archived February 3, 2023. Archive URL: https://archive.ph/I45k5