One of the main reasons for this difference is that actually, a lot of households *don't own cars* (24% in 2018 in England). And this gets to 46%(!) in the lowest income quintile.
So roughly *half* of 'hard-pressed families will not benefit from a fuel duty cut.
They would probably benefit benefit from a cut in bus fares - but since buses are privatised and deregulated in most of the UK, cutting bus fares is not even on the agenda...
What about the other half of low-income people though?
Well in our @TranspPoverty study we have found that roughly 9% of the UK population has low income, high motoring costs, and inelastic fuel demand
@TranspPoverty So the 7-9% of households with high motoring costs + low income will actually benefit from a fuel duty cut, at least in the short term.
BUT there is another, possibly larger group of 'hard-pressed families' who will not benefit from it. These are usually not mentioned at all
@TranspPoverty This is a common fallacy: assuming that 1) everyone has/uses cars... 2) ...and we all use them pretty much in the same way... 3) ...but some of us are poor, so making car use cheaper will be good for them.
@TranspPoverty More broadly, there are good reasons to think that the benefits of cutting the fuel duty would be short-lived, and the longer term effects undesirable.
Aviation emissions are booming. With climate targets looming, you would expect governments to act. And yet they don't - if anything they work to make sure that emissions increase even further. But why?
We tend to think of the aviation problem as one where we have this problematic sector, aviation, and then the State sitting outside of it. And we want the State to act as a REGULATOR so that emissions decrease.
What this study shows is that this is a very naive way of thinking.
To me the most striking thing in this chart is how much the Italian saving rate has *declined* over time: from nearly three times as much as the UK in 2000 to less than the UK today
And if you know the Italian social system, you know how much of it is based on household savings. Middle-class parents save their whole life to buy a dwelling for their children one day. Young people stay home & save for said dwelling rather than renting, etc.
Parents (and sometimes grandparents) use their savings to support children & grandchildren who find themselves unemployed - because no, many/most of them have no right to unemployment benefits or minimum guaranteed income.
In Germany as in the rest of Europe, we are reducing emissions in other sectors while not reducing them (and sometimes even increasing them) in the transport sector.
So each year transport accounts for a higher share of total emissions ⬇️
I think this means that the climate debate and the transport debate will progressively become *conflated*. Most of the climate debate will be about cars and planes.
Excuses such as "Let's pick some other low-hanging fruit!" or "Let's do nuclear instead!" won't cut it.
It gets worse: when asked whether they intend to implement measures to prevent such deaths from happening in the future, this is the police's reply. Note that the woman died *on a pedestrian crossing*
The leader of the Conservatives (first in the polls)
3) 05.11.23
A Liberal MP proposes to drastically reduce the rights to political participation, right of assembly / freedom of association for non-EU foreign residents