HAULAGE firms descended on Downing Street yesterday in a bid to persuade Chancellor Alistair Darling to scrap plans to increase fuel tax later this year.

The freight companies say the two pence per litre rise in April - announced in Gordon Brown's last Budget - is now an increase too far following major price rises at the pumps in recent months.

We think they have a point - but we doubt if they have much chance of getting the Government to change its mind.

Mr Darling has already made it clear that April's increase is part of a three-year fuel duty plan that aims to provide "certainty for business" and sends out the right signals to the Green lobby.

The problem is that this is not just about business.

The increase in fuel duty has a double whammy effect on every one of us. It will cost us more to fill up at the pumps and we will also inevitably see increased costs of food and other goods in the shops as the hauliers pass on the rise to their customers.

Of course, there is a growing environmental need for the world as a whole to begin to reduce its dependence on the motor car. But simply putting up the price of fuel is a particularly unsubtle way of dealing with the problem.

Making the trains and buses affordable, reliable and attractive is the way to tackle climate change - not whacking a few extra quid on to the already ludicrous price of a tank of fuel.