Rising fuel prices are putting serious pressure on UK small businesses, with a new survey suggesting more than a third of sole traders fear the situation could threaten their survival. The findings come from campaign group FairFuelUK, which polled 3,678 self-employed tradespeople — plumbers, electricians, bricklayers and others for whom road travel is a daily operational necessity.
Of those surveyed, 36.4% said that if pump prices remain at current levels, their business may not be viable. For many in the trades, diesel costs aren’t a peripheral expense — they sit alongside labour as one of the biggest line items in the week. Unlike larger firms, sole traders typically have little financial buffer to absorb sustained cost increases, and limited ability to pass them on without losing work to competitors.
The broader picture isn’t much more encouraging. A wider opinion poll cited by FairFuelUK found strong support among both motorists and business owners for government intervention, with backing for fuel duty cuts and tighter oversight of how prices are set and communicated at the pump.
Howard Cox, who founded FairFuelUK, is pushing the government on several fronts: maintaining the current freeze on fuel duty for the rest of this Parliament, cutting it further to give immediate relief, removing VAT from fuel duty — which campaigners argue amounts to a tax levied on top of another tax — and establishing an independent body to monitor pump pricing and hold fuel retailers to account.
The government’s position, as articulated by the Chancellor, has been to frame rising energy costs as primarily a global problem, pointing to the volatility in international oil markets rather than domestic policy as the main driver. Critics argue that framing sidesteps the degree to which UK tax policy makes fuel more expensive here than in comparable economies, and that there is room to act even within existing fiscal constraints.
Several other countries have already moved. France, India and Italy have at various points introduced price caps, temporary tax reductions or other supply-side interventions to cushion the impact on households and businesses. Those comparisons are now being used regularly by UK campaigners to argue the government has more room to manoeuvre than it is letting on.
The knock-on effects extend beyond individual businesses. Higher fuel costs push up transport and logistics expenses across supply chains, which feeds through into the price of goods and services more broadly. That has implications for inflation, which in turn constrains the Bank of England’s ability to cut interest rates and ease borrowing costs — prolonging financial pressure for households already stretched by the cost of living.
For small businesses especially, the concern is that a prolonged period of high fuel costs doesn’t just squeeze margins — it forces some out of the market entirely, reducing local competition and capacity in sectors the economy relies on. Whether the government responds with targeted relief or maintains its current position will likely become a more pointed political question if prices continue to climb.