Martin Brown, managing director at Fleet Alliance said he was disappointed that the Government had not removed the 3% Benefit-in-Kind taxation surcharge that diesels cars are currently faced with.

“However, the government’s decision to maintain the 3% diesel surcharge within the company car tax regime is a discriminatory tax against diesel fuel, is totally out-of-date and needs to be abolished.

“We have long campaigned for this distortion to be removed – the improvement in diesel technologies over the years has left this charge looking very dated. There is no longer any justifiable reason that diesel cars should be penalised by an extra 3%, when in fact they are very low carbon emitters and modern technologies have done much to remove or reduce particulates,” he said.

Brown welcomed the abolition of fuel escalator and the removal of the 1p increase in fuel duty.

“The Government has clearly re-thought its plans for fuel duty against a backdrop of rising fuel costs and VAT increases which are a considerable fiscal drag on the economic recovery. The changes announced will be applauded by many businesses,” he said.

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