I FAIL to understand the logic of the Chancellor who, with his constant increases in fuel tax, is actually reducing not increasing his revenue.

A set number of haulage journeys must be made each year for any business to supply its retail outlets or customers. It does not matter whether the vehicles and/or drivers are indigenous or foreign, pollution and road damage still occurs, and to a consistent degree.

It is therefore a fallacy for the Chancellor to claim that high excise duty and fuel duty benefits the environment. The only effect of high duty on British hauliers (foreign vehicles are taxed and fuelled on the continent, thereby paying no taxes to the British Exchequer) is to endanger the profitability and viability of haulage companies and drivers here in Britain.

Each increase in fuel duty, far from increasing tax revenues, causes a reduction in those revenues as foreign vehicles increasingly replace those of struggling British haulage companies.

Additionally, with each increase in fuel duty, private vehicles are used less for none essential journeys. If the Chancellor were to cut the fuel tax, more fuel would be purchased by private motorists for social use in addition to essential journeys.

Which would Gordon Brown prefer: 85p duty per litre on 1 million litres (£850,000), or 75p duty per litre on 2 million litres (£1.5 million), an additional revenue of £650,000?

A. P. TOBIAS