People across rural Norfolk are calling on the chancellor to put the brakes on the sharply rising costs of fuel and heating oil.
For months, charities and anti-poverty campaigners have been warning that increased heating and petrol bills risk pushing families - and often particularly those living in the countryside - to the brink.
The issue was thrust into the spotlight again on Wednesday as North Norfolk MP Duncan Baker asked deputy prime minister Dominic Raab to do what he could to ensure the problem was addressed in the Spring Statement.
Mr Baker, a Conservative, said rural constituencies such as his faced a "double whammy" from "crippling costs".
The MP said: "My residents rely on their cars to get around and they heat their homes using heating oil.
"The price of crude oil may have come down in the past few days, but the petrol pumps are still going up.
"I have had constituents who are quoted £2 a litre for heating oil.
"This not only affects working families, but pensioners in rural areas who are on a fixed income."
Standing in for prime minister Boris Johnson, who was away in Saudia Arabia, Mr Raab said the government had made a £20bn package available to deal with cost of living increases.
But he said Mr Baker's points were "well made" and that Mr Sunak would have heard his suggestions.
Retiree Douglas Pearl, who lives in Great Plumstead, near Norwich, has been keeping close track of the rising cost of heating oil.
“It is a big issue. I’ve just bought another 600 litres of oil,” he said.
“On April 30, 2021 I paid £269.21.
“On February 25 this year, I paid £402.89.
“That’s including VAT, but it’s still a big price rise by itself and what with the council tax increasing, and prices going up in the shops… you think to yourself, where is this going to end?
“They’ve stopped the triple lock pension rise this year. I can’t go out and work even if I wanted to, I’m partially-disabled.”
Asked what he would like to see from Mr Sunak’s spring statement, Mr Pearl said: “I’d like him to do something for people who live in the countryside - I don’t think they realise that the fuel costs for a car have gone up.”
The 75-year-old added: “I read about somebody in Suffolk who had 1,100 litres of oil stolen.
“I went to Wilko on Monday and bought a lock. We’ve lived here seven years and I’d never locked the oil tank before, but now I’ve got a strong padlock on there.”
Michelle Marchesi, debt unit manager for Diss and Thetford at Norfolk Citizen Advice warned that the situation was likely to worsen as the new financial year begins.
“There’s definitely not the help there, for the prices that the oil now is,” she said.
“No one’s allowed [in their budgets] for near on £750, £950, just for six weeks worth of oil, so even people who could normally afford it will have no means of affording it.
“We’re waiting for an onslaught of clients, really.”
She added that rural areas were especially vulnerable to petrol price rises.
“Most of our clients are stuck out of the way, they don’t have the option of resorting to other transportation.
“We don’t have the bus links, we don’t have the option of just hopping on a bike, because it might be miles to get to the nearest shop."
Looking to next week’s spring statement, Ms Marchesi said: “We’d love an increase to the warm homes discount, it’s not gone up for a good nine or ten years."
The government has said the discount will increase next winter.
Ms Marchesi added: “And it would be great if the energy cap did cover oil as well, if there was some form of regulation to stop it hitting the peaks that we’ve seen in the last two weeks, but I think, possibly, it’s not likely [to happen].”
Politicians of all stripes joined Mr Baker on Wednesday in calling for action on the problem.
Conservative MP for Broadland Jerome Mayhew said: “Petrol and oil prices have risen quickly on the back of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine but have stabilised substantially this last week, yet prices have not come down for consumers.
“With oil now less than $100 per barrel, retailers should reduce their prices as quickly as they put them up.”
Liberal Democrat Steffan Aquarone, who hopes to unseat Mr Baker at the next election, said: "An emergency cut to VAT would offer a massive boost to people in North Norfolk feeling the pinch by putting over £18.5m back into their pockets.
"This is crunch time for the chancellor and the Conservatives. Will they act or just inflict more financial pain on families by clobbering them with another unfair tax hike?”
Breckland Council’s Labour opposition leader Terry Jermy said he had experienced a “significant increase” in the number of people contacting him with financial worries, and that the rising cost of heating homes was being cited especially often.
“This is despite the fact that we have had a relatively mild winter,” said Mr Jermy.
“In Thetford, we are able to refer people to the local fuel bank, but this is only a sticking plaster.
The councilllor said rural districts like Breckland have been especially badly hit, because of a large number of poorly insulated properties and a greater reliance on heating oil.
“We want to see greater support for people on low incomes to access government funding around improving home insulation and micro-energy production so those most in need can make the long-term changes needed with their properties - tackling both fuel poverty and the climate emergency,” said Mr Jermy.
And Roger Atterwill, independent district councillor for Swanton Morley, near Dereham, said he thought Mr Sunak “must be doing quite well on VAT receipts at the moment, because the cost of everything has gone up” so he should be able to tackle rising fuel costs.
Analysis by Ken Symon, Business and Energy Editor
Chancellor’s Budgets are always a high wire balancing with the office incumbent having to give here and take there to balance the nation's finances.
But Rishi Sunak, who is still new in the role and comparatively very new in politics for the holder of one of the great offices of state, has a tougher acrobatic challenge in next week’s Spring Statement than most.
He was ‘Mr Popular’ when he was doling out the nation's cash in the form of much-needed relief from the effects of the pandemic, but much less so now when action needs to be taken to reduce UK debt that paid for his previous ‘largesse.’
But what he will present next Wednesday is a rosier picture of the UK’s finances than was previously expected – good news, but news that will very much add to the political pressure on him to deal with the worst cost of living crisis for decades.
The level of tax revenue taking into the Treasury’s coffers for the financial year ending March means that public borrowing will in fact be lower than the Office for Budget Responsibility predicted in October.
The UK financial watchdog said then it expected borrowing to be £183bn but it is expected to be about £160bn, following greater tax receipts as businesses bounced back better from the pandemic than expected.
Cue greater pressure with Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer telling the Financial Times that if the Chancellor chose to “sit on his hands” at the spring statement it would “send a strong signal to the British public about the lack of priority he gives to their real financial concerns”.
Will he respond to the pressure in measures including following France, the Netherlands and Ireland by cutting duty on fuel? Mr Sunak pointed out to Conservative MPs on Monday that the 20pc fall in the oil price would ease things but remained tight-lipped on whether he would cut duty.
He could take such action or claim prudence by leaving things until the Autumn when the international security situation may be clearer.
But the political calculation he and Boris Johnson will be weighing up is what measure to introduce now and what fire power to keep to be able to introduce a tax cut in time for the next general election.
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