Closed consultation

Proposed extension of the rural fuel rebate scheme: call for information

Published 7 November 2013

This was published under the 2010 to 2015 Conservative and Liberal Democrat coalition government

1. Introduction

The government recently published the criteria for determining the areas to include in the UK’s application to the European Commission for an extension to the rural fuel rebate scheme:

Pump Price Threshold

Pump prices have to be more expensive than the lowest pump price on the islands in the existing scheme (not including the current rebate), during the months examined:

	October 2012	November 2012	December 2012
Petrol	145ppl	139ppl	140ppl
Diesel	149ppl	149ppl	146ppl

Cost of Transporting Fuel

Places have to be over 100 miles by road from the nearest refinery.

Population Density

The population density must be no higher than any area in the current scheme.

These criteria take into account factors that the European Commission have indicated will be critical in their assessment of whether to approve an extension of the scheme.

Over the summer, the government launched a call for information inviting remote rural service stations in the places listed below to submit data on petrol and diesel prices in the last quarter of 2012. However, not all retailers were able to provide information. Therefore, the government is extending the call for information until Friday 6 December 2013. This will give service stations in these county council or local authority areas (Scotland, England and Wales) or local government districts (Northern Ireland) the opportunity to provide further information:

• Cornwall
• Cumbria
• Devon
• Herefordshire
• North Yorkshire
• Northumberland
• Gwynedd
• Isle of Anglesey
• Monmouthshire
• Powys
• Aberdeenshire
• Angus
• Argyll and Bute
• Dumfries and Galloway
• Highland
• Moray
• Perth and Kinross
• Scottish Borders
• South Ayrshire
• Antrim
• Armagh
• Ballymena
• Ballymoney
• Banbridge
• Coleraine
• Cookstown
• Dungannon
• Down
• Fermanagh
• Larne
• Limavady
• Magherafelt
• Moyle
• Newry and Mourne
• Omagh
• Strabane

2. Call for information

The government aims to submit its application to the European Commission in January.

We are most interested in identifying areas where prices were consistently at or above the levels in the table set out above. Areas where prices were consistently below these levels are extremely unlikely to be included in the extension.

The government requests the following specific information:

• ordinary unleaded and diesel pump price data from October, November and December 2012, entered in the attached spreadsheet in the format requested
• copies of business records dating from the time period in question to enable verification of the pump price data; these can be in any format
• company name and address, including post code

We reserve the right to discount responses if data is not formatted and submitted as set out above, or for any other reason related to our ability to analyse the data provided.

3. FAQs

How will my data be used?

The data provided through this call for information will only be used to support government’s work in developing the extension to the rural fuel rebate scheme. The data will be used to improve the government’s understanding of typical prices across remote rural areas, and hence to determine which areas should be included in the proposed extension. Although the call for information requests data from individual sites to build the evidence base on prices in remote rural areas, the final extension proposal will be based on geographical areas, not on individual sites.

Why has the call for information been re-opened?

The government is giving fuel retailers the opportunity to submit further information to the Treasury as part of its plan to extend the island fuel discount to mainland rural areas. The supplementary call for information, which will last for four weeks, is designed to designed to allow retailers which didn’t submit data as part of the original call for information a second opportunity to respond.

I have already provided data as part of the previous call for information do I need to resubmit?

If you already provided data in the format described above before 4 September, you do not need to re-submit data. However, if you provided data in the incorrect format, or after the call for information formally closed, then you will need to re-submit data to be considered for the extension.

My area is on the list of ten that has already qualified for the list. Do I need to re-submit data?

No. The areas below will remain part of the application and won’t need to submit further information:

• Acharacle (Scotland – Highland council area)
• Achnasheen (Scotland – Highland council area)
• Appin (Scotland – Argyll and Bute council area)
• Carrbridge (Scotland - Highland council area)
• Dalwhinnie (Scotland - Highland council area)
• Gairloch (Scotland - Highland council area)
• Hawes (England – North Yorkshire county)
• Kirkby-in-Furness (England – Cumbria county)
• Lynton (England – Devon county)
• Strathpeffer (Scotland - Highland council area)

Why is the call for information restricted to particular areas?

The current rural fuel rebate recognises that pump prices in remote areas of the country are particularly high when compared with the UK average, due to the cost of transporting and distributing fuel in the isolated communities. Any extension of the scheme would look to provide support to remote areas of the UK that experience high pump prices for similar reasons. The call for information is therefore restricted to counties in which the costs of transporting fuel are likely to be significantly higher than the UK average, and in which a low population density means that the fixed costs of running a service station are spread across a small number of customers.

My prices were below those given in the table above – is it still worth me submitting data?

Not all areas within the counties listed will experience the high prices typical of the island areas within the current scheme. If your average prices over the months in question are consistently lower than those given in the table it is unlikely that your area would fall within the extension, so you may wish to avoid the work involved in submitting data.

Please email rhmtruralfuelrebate@hmtreasury.gsi.gov.uk with any further queries

4. Background: Current rural fuel rebate scheme

The current rebate scheme allows retailers of road fuel within the Inner and Outer Hebrides, the Northern Isles, the Islands of the Clyde and the Isles of Scilly to register with HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) to claim back five pence per litre (ppl) relief on unleaded petrol and diesel for retail sale within the eligible areas.

Retailers of road fuel within the areas concerned can register with HMRC to claim five ppl relief on fuel purchased on or after 1 January 2012 for onward retail sale in the Inner and Outer Hebrides, the Northern Isles, the Islands of the Clyde and the Isles of Scilly.

Retailers can make claims on a monthly basis and have 60 days following registration to reduce the cost of every litre of road fuel sold by the equivalent amount of the relief claimed. This is so that all consumers in the areas concerned benefit from the reduction in fuel duty. The 60 day period during which retailers are not required to pass on the relief is designed to help avoid initial cash flow problems.

To enact the current scheme the government needed EU agreement. This is because any discount on the standard rate of fuel duty requires a derogation from the EU Energy Tax Directive. We will also need European clearance for the extension of the scheme.

Further information on the current rebate scheme can be found on the HMRC website