Shipley Transport managing director David Clarke said the company, which moves food, drink and packaging, spent £50,000 more on fuel in March than in February.
“It’s a bit like Covid isn’t it? It’s an emergency. So I think they should be giving a rebate to farmers and truckers – the people who are using everything because that’s going to help inflation come down and at the minute all they’re doing is they’re stoking inflation up,” he said.
The company has been operating since 1990 and employs 92 people as well as running 48 trucks and 85 trailers.
Shipley Transport employs a fuel escalator, which passes on some of the increased fuel costs to customers.
This week it is set to 24% but before the Iran war it was set at 8%.
“So you can see the customers are having to pay like an extra 16% more across the board. And it’s been creeping up,” said Clarke.
“I don’t think the government helps the situation because they’re raking it in with all the tax on the additional price.”
He added that many hauliers were struggling with National Insurance contributions, the increased minimum wage, and the rising costs of lorry parts and tyres.
He said: “If they gave hauliers some help, then the fuel escalator would come down.
“And with that prices would come down, and with that inflation would come down, and with that interest rates would come down.”
Speaking in the House of Commons, Chancellor Rachel Reeves said claims the Exchequer was receiving a VAT windfall were “economically illiterate”.
She said: “The truth is that the IMF and every other forecaster is clear that tax revenues are going to be lower, not higher, because of this conflict in the Middle East.”