BOLTON and Bury Chamber is adding its voice to a national call for immediate government action to address the cost of increased fuel prices on British business competitiveness.

With escalating world oil prices driving up the cost of fuel in the UK, the British Chambers of Commerce (BCC) is demanding that government implement a temporary reduction in fuel duty in order to stabilise prices.

The BCC is also calling on the Chancellor to introduce, in the longer term, a sliding scale of fuel duty, designed to smooth out the effects of fluctuations in world oil prices -- as oil prices rise, duty on fuel should fall and vice versa.

Cutting duty, the BCC believes, would involve no shortfall in government revenue, but would bring much-needed relief to industry, help dampen inflation and thereby reduce the threat of interest rate rises.

Richard Bindless, Chief Executive of Bolton and Bury Chamber, explained: "Since the last budget in March of this year, the government has collected £1 billion more duty on fuel than forecast because of the sharp oil price rises.

"For every dollar increase on the price of a barrel of oil, the Treasury coffers have been swelled by £0.3 billion.

"It is not acceptable that government finances should be buoyed while industry and the wider economy suffers."