[Closed] Petrol Prices........

I think they're about right to be honest. Expensive enough to make people think and consider unnecessary journeys, not too expensive that its impossible to do business.

I also think they are about right and the price reflects the fact that oil is a resource that is running out. Despite what many people say we pay about the same as much of Europe and the US may pay less but that hardly appears to be helping stimulate their economy does it.
As always the real issue is not the price of petrol but they lack of viable alternatives in this country.

I think they're about right to be honest.

Not for transporting goods it's not. Along side other factors it's pushing the price of a weekly shop through the roof.

I foresee.

"It's a rip off fuel companies are making a fortune"

"It's not the fuel companies it's Cameron and his thieves."

"If you can still run your car it's too cheap"

and finally the always predictable

"Should be £5 a litre"

Thread closed due to moderator 🙁

52p out of every litre goes in oil & to the retailer the rest goes to the government & in tax*.

There's a lot the government could do.

If they want to help bring down inflation & help the economic recovery without touching interest rates they could knock say 10-15p off a litre to help bring down the cost of goods & so help stimulate the economy by giving people a bit more money in their pocket. It wouldn't solve the problem on its own but would help.

*source - BBC Breakfast.

Reduction of 30p per litre at the very least or take the cost per litre below £1.00 and keep it there regardless of oil prices/tax grabbers.

IMHO

If they want to help bring down inflation & help the economic recovery without touching interest rates they could knock say 10-15p off a litre to help bring down the cost of goods & so help stimulate the economy by giving people a bit more money in their pocket. It wouldn't solve the problem on its own but would help.

Sadly they are more likely to knock off the 50p tax than anything else (reports written by bankers will tell them it has no benefit). Petrol taxes bring too much money towards the deficit reduction for the government to remove them.

Sadly they are more likely to knock off the 50p tax than anything else (reports written by bankers will tell them it has no benefit). Petrol taxes bring too much money towards the deficit reduction for the government to remove them.

This. For those who want a reduction in fuel duty what other taxes would you raise to cover the loss of revenue on an ongoing basis?

There's a lot the government could do.

If they want to help bring down inflation & help the economic recovery without touching interest rates they could knock say 10-15p off a litre

You sure they could do that? Where'd the money come from?

so the govt knocks 10 -15p a litre off the price.. who makes up the tax deficet? shall we close all the libaries, only let firemen go out if you have house insurance? the choice is yours..

If they want to help bring down inflation & help the economic recovery without touching interest rates they could knock say 10-15p off a litre

And who would then make up the shortfall of tens of billions of pounds of tax revenue? Even the 1p cut in fuel duty cost the Treasury over a billion a year...

i've got a dose of man-flu, so i drove to work this morning.

i was the only, and i do mean [u]only[/u] person obeying the 50mph speed limit on the dual-carriageway*.

everyone else was just burning fuel for fun, they all think it's cheap enough.

(*it's a horrible bit of road; lots of junctions, etc. it's 50 for a reason)

Thats Ok by me.

Next.

i was the only, and i do mean only person obeying the 50mph speed limit on the dual-carriageway.

My hero.

your point is?

In the future, everyone will walk or cycle to work, apart from football players and bankers, who will ride a horse from their extensive grounds.

Goods will be transported around the country using a network of canals. This will have been massively extended by drafting the nation's prisoners into canal construction. There will be a few problems with runaways of course, but mountain bikers will be paid big rewards for each escapee brought back to the canals (dead or alive).

Most of the Highlands of Scotland will become completely inaccessible, except for those prepared to put up with long midge-filled treks on foot or fatbike along crumbling abandoned roads, and will become de-facto independent. The few remaining isolated settlements will slowly shrink and become ever more insular.

We will no longer be able to afford an air force based around fighter jets. Instead, we shall attack foreign nations (on a regular basis) with a fleet of military hot air balloons. Our brave lads will float gracefully over enemy territories and toss bombs over the side of the baskets onto the warring forces below.

Alternatively, we'll get loads of fuel by fracking, and petrol will be cheap, and so will houses in those areas.

I can remember when four star was about 47p a gallon

How would they reconcile a fuel duty drop with the claim of being "the greenest government ever"?

( 😆 )

I foresee.

"It's a rip off fuel companies are making a fortune"

"It's not the fuel companies it's Cameron and his thieves."

"If you can still run your car it's too cheap"

and finally the always predictable

"Should be £5 a litre"

very clever - but what's YOUR opinion?

(it seems pricey to me, but most people crack on regardless. taxes have to come from somewhere, and fuel-duty seems as sensible/daft a way to do it as any)

your point is?

No point at all.

I think they're about right to be honest. Expensive enough to make people think and consider unnecessary journeys, not too expensive that its impossible to do business.

I pretty much agree with the above.

People should stop being so lazy and walk places a bit more.

BBC News this morning talking to Mum's on the school run - some of the poor unfortunate souls have now been reduced to using their legs to get there (1, 2, 3, ahhhhhh) ... well, boo hoo ... 🙄

My neighbour drives his kids to school in a big 4WD truck thing. My son goes to the same school. We walk him. It's 10 minutes.

Rising petrol prices have at least caused the population to actually reconsider their dependency on a car.

May cause pain in the short term but over time I believe (hope) it will be beneficial.

I can remember when four star was about 47p a gallon

Were you filling up your Model T Ford at the time? 😉

Lets reduce prices loads. Then we can behave like Americans in the 90's. We can all buy trucks with 7 litre engines. Or Hummers. And then lose the use of our legs and build everything as drive-thru's. And all become morbidly obese weebles incapable of walking to the end of the road.

Have you noticed the people complaining on telly about fuel prices are all, without exception, right fat bastards?

Rising petrol prices have at least caused the population to actually reconsider their dependency on a car.

May cause pain in the short term but over time I believe (hope) it will be beneficial.

Unfortunately you cant walk lorry loads of goods to the shops, kids are much easier.

But ultimately we'll have to re-think economic models, supply chains etc. surely? And not before time IMHO

High fuel prices are fine if you live in an environment that can cope with mass human movement, but out in Ruralshire it's a different matter alltogether. I think some of you need to understand that before proclaiming "saving the environment" is the prime motivator for high tax "ripoffidge"..
Genuinely there are folks out there that can not move around due to high fuel costs and no public transport infrastructure.

We have for too long been influenced by doom laiden'ists proclaiming the only way to cut greenhouse gasses and other particulates is to force people off the roads.
It isn't, it's not a solution, it limiting and just another way to contain and repress a basic human need and that is freedom to move.

IMHO

Next.

it's a shame there is no public transport option for so many people, forcing them into cars.

buses in my area are being cut back and cut back. It would be a journey of 2 buses and a 1.5 mile walk to get to work at a cost of £6.50 a day (£25/week for a travel card). taking the best part of 1.5 hours to do a 5 mile journey.

Oil is running out, that's an inescapable fact whether we like it or not. I'd love to be able to afford to run a 2.5 litre V6, but it wouldn't easily sit with me now regardless of whether I had a big enough pot of money or not.

I would be happier if this (and previous) governments had diverted a larger pot of fuel duty revenue into public transport. The "Green" claims have all been very hollow when you figure that a lot has been done to keep people [i]in[/i] their cars and feeding the treasury.

We're at a very dangerous juncture when the government is as addicted to the duties from fuel as the British public is to fossil fuel powered personal transport.

cost of fuel has a negligable impact on the weekly shop. Average food journey is approx 400 miles. Average lorry carries 40 tonnes of food, and does 10mpg. take the round trip into account and its 80 gallons - so around £500 for 40 tonnes of food.

lets say a normal weekly shop is approx 20kg of goods. the cost of fuel on your weekly shop is 25p.

if fuel prices go up by half, you'll pay an extra 12p on a weekly shop

Unfortunately you cant walk lorry loads of goods to the shops, kids are much easier.

Hah. True. I wrote my comment on the assumption people would have enough available IQ to realise I wasn't referring to haulage and what-not.

it limiting and just another way to contain and repress a basic human need and that is freedom to move.

Just slight hyperbole there.

I don't necessarily disagree with an increase in fuel prices. I think in the long term we need to be weaned off our dependence on the car.
But, I don't think that the government is doing enough in parallel to improve public transport.
I live in a not insubstantial town where the local population numbers about 13000 but the bus service is dismal. They have recently cut one of the routes that wound its way around the more outlying areas before heading into the glorious city of Peterborough.
If you want to get a bus into Peterborough for a night out, then you can get a bus there, but the last bus back is at about 8pm. So you have no option but to get a taxi. I am sure there must be enough people to lay on one bus that leaves a bit later.

I have looked several times at commuting by public transport instead of my car and it is not feasible. It is possible to do so, but would more than double my commute time.

another way to contain and repress a basic human need and that is freedom to move.

along with

'Political Correctness' - a way to control what we say and think

'Health & Safety' - (when wrongly applied) a subtle mechanism to control our actions and movements

Maybe. If you're paranoid. 🙂

...Genuinely there are folks out there (in rural land) that can not move around due to high fuel costs and no public transport infrastructure...

this is of course, not good.

but, we've seen this situation developing for what? - 40 years? - it's not as if anyone can claim to be surprised. That they've not had time to adapt.

my parents chose to live 10 miles from a lovely little market town, which has everything they could ever need within walking distance. with regular train / bus services to and from York/scarborough/leeds/etc.

they chose not to live IN the town.

they complain about the price of fuel - they spend an awful lot of time/money driving to and from that lovely little town.

i think my parents are a bit daft.

From the article - [i]"for the average motorist the planned increase would equate to an additional £38 a year at the pumps."[/i]

So we're talking 73p a week. So basically every 4 weeks you spend the equivalent of a pint of beer extra. It hardly seems like the biggest hardship.

Yeah... but they keep putting up the duty on beer too. So if you're a drink-driver then you're being punished unfairly.

Fat, drunk people with accident-damaged vehicles won't take much more of this

My neighbour drives his kids to school in a big 4WD truck thing. My son goes to the same school. We walk him. It's 10 minutes.

Unfortunately you cant walk lorry loads of goods to the shops

So we're talking 73p a week. So basically every 4 weeks you spend the equivalent of a pint of beer extra. It hardly seems like the biggest hardship.

Hello perspective, how are you?

The planned rise will cost me £79/year approximately (worked out from the calculation I just did on the 'how much do you spend on fuel' thread.

When I bought my car 5 years ago fuel was ~£0.90/litre. The increase in fuel costs since means I am spending £1215/year more than I would have done when I bought it on fuel!

ahwiles - Member
i've got a dose of man-flu, so i drove to work this morning.

i was the only, and i do mean only person obeying the 50mph speed limit on the dual-carriageway*.

everyone else was just burning fuel for fun, they all think it's cheap enough.

but, we've seen this situation developing for what? - 40 years? - it's not as if anyone can claim to be surprised. That they've not had time to adapt.

What happens if you buy a house in a nice village which has everything you need and a regular bus service to the nearest town, but the village shops go out of business because Tesco built a superstore ten miles away, and the local council cuts the subsidy to the local bus company so they stop the service?

There are factors operating at scales beyond the control of individuals which mean adapting is not possible.

BBC News this morning talking to Mum's on the school run - some of the poor unfortunate souls have now been reduced to using their legs to get there (1, 2, 3, ahhhhhh) ... well, boo hoo ...

My neighbour drives his kids to school in a big 4WD truck thing. My son goes to the same school. We walk him. It's 10 minutes.

As usual - a puerile and completely fatuous argument...

At what age would you suggests kids walk to school (accompanied and unaccompanied)?

[b]11?[/b] - my son has just started "big school" - we believe that he is now old enough to walk to the bus stop on his own. But the law says (admittedly not clear cut) that if we leave an under 14 in the house alone we may get prosecuted...

[b]10?[/b] - daughter is almost 10, primary school kids. I really don't feel that she is old enough to / from walk to school unaccompanied, especially in the dark months of the year

[b]3?[/b] - the age kids start school around here

Walking primary and younger kids to / from school is utterly dependent on going back to the old days of one parent working / one parent staying at home.... so feasible for those who are very well off - or on benefits.

What happens if you buy a house in a nice village which has everything you need and a regular bus service to the nearest town, but the village shops go out of business because Tesco built a superstore ten miles away, and the local council cuts the subsidy to the local bus company so they stop the service?

You use Tesco home delivery.
😀

ahwiles - Member
i've got a dose of man-flu, so i drove to work this morning.

i was the only, and i do mean only person obeying the 50mph speed limit on the dual-carriageway*.

everyone else was just burning fuel for fun, they all think it's cheap enough.

Except that doesn't really work.
In my own car for example, 50 mph = 42 mpg. 70 mph = 40 mpg. Fuel would need to be massively higher priced to make that difference worthwhile.

My neighbour drives his kids to school in a big 4WD truck thing. My son goes to the same school. We walk him. It's 10 minutes

druidh - Member
That really. Fuel will be at the right price when the majority of drivers are trying to conserve it.

Relatively speaking, I think that a lot of people already are (trying to conserve fuel).
There used to be a constant stream of people coming past me on my way to work at ridiculous speeds. I don't really see that anymore. Sure, people are still going fast, but there aren't as many of them. More people are sticking to 70mph, which is perhaps still faster than ideal for economy, but relatively speaking is better than sitting at 80mph.
And when i used to drive to work at 70mph I hardly ever used to overtake people. Now even slowed down to 60mph, I do overtake a few people on my commute who are obviously thinking the same way as me.

I now sit at 60mph for my commute and am saving money.....although even at the mileage I do it's not a massive amount.
I reckon I am getting about 5mpg more driving like a real ninny. Over 600 miles/week that works out to £5.69/week (assuming 60 v's 55mpg, and current fuel cost of £1.38).

You could argue that £23/month saved isn't really worth the extra time it takes to get to & from work.....hmmmmm.

Walking primary and younger kids to / from school is utterly dependent on going back to the old days of one parent working / one parent staying at home.... so feasible for those who are very well off - [b]or on benefits[/b]

Yeah bloody child benefit/tax credit scroungers!

this article makes for interesting reading

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-15462923

You could argue that £23/month saved isn't really worth the extra time it takes to get to & from work.....hmmmmm.

How long extra?

Walking primary and younger kids to / from school is utterly dependent on going back to the old days of one parent working / one parent staying at home.... so feasible for those who are very well off - or on benefits.

I walked to school alone from the age of about 6. Granted it was only a 1/4 a mile away, so only about a 5 minute walk assuming I didn't wander . Prior to that I would have been walked there by my single mum before she went to her part-time job. Not well-off, no benefits. Big school at 11 was a 2 mile cycle trip each way.
Of course life was a lot safer then because paedophiles and bicycle helmets hadn't been invented 😀

I have sympathy though, housing costs are a lot more now as a proportion of income, and people nowadays (including me) count as essentials a lot of crap that really isn't required to enjoy life, which does lead to a sort of learnt helplessness when looking at alternative choices.

3? - the age kids start school around here

Walking primary and younger kids to / from school is utterly dependent on going back to the old days of one parent working / one parent staying at home.... so feasible for those who are very well off - or on benefits.

There is of course always the option of setting up a walking bus - you could get one of those lazy dole scroungers to lead it.

What happens if you buy a house in a nice village which has everything you need and a regular bus service to the nearest town, but the village shops go out of business because Tesco built a superstore ten miles away, and the local council cuts the subsidy to the local bus company so they stop the service?

There are factors operating at scales beyond the control of individuals which mean adapting is not possible.

Well on the basis that no one will shop at Tesco if it works out more expensive, the cost of fuel + food must be less than the premium they were paying for the food localy.

Capitalism init?

We've been increasing duty on fuel for decades and yet people still pretty much drive whenever they want. They might have a good whinge about it but they still get in their vehicles, turn on the AC and settle down to an hour of Radio 4. It isnt going to change. You want a lesson in human nature go have a look at Singapore. A tiny country with a fantastic transport network, you can get anywhere in half an hour, most places in 15 minutes. Cars (due to taxes) cost FOUR TIMES what they do in the UK. Yet the roads are full, and getting worse, even as vehicles get more expensive.......everyone wants a car.

My next car is going to be a 60mpg version of the one I'm driving now that does 35mpg. The one I'm going to buy after that (say in 10yrs) I fully expect to be "driverless" and therefore hopefully massively fuel efficient.

I dont doubt that global warming is happening and that mankind is contributing, but I do think we might have lost our marbles tying ourselves in knots over it. We've had our industrial revolution, the Chinese and Indians are going to have theirs now.

But yeh, want a cut in fuel duty? Tell me what other tax you want to pay......and by you I mean YOU, not some other sucker.

3? - the age kids start school around here

You don't live in the UK?

The starting age for Welsh medium school in our area.

My point was, that walking to, and especially [u]from[/u] school is going to be largely dependent on a non-working parent being around. again, refereing to primary age and younger...

Multiple choice - which works best?

A - 6 YO walks home at 3:30pm (in the dark in winter), lets themselves in and waits in an empty house until parent gets home at 17:30-18:00

B - 6 YO gets picked up from after school club at 17:30 and driven home. Parent is driving because they have just driven home from work...?

FWIW I fully agree with the more economic driving I see on the roads. I do think fuel costs are too high - it's largely a fiscal measure and the tax revenues have to be balanced against the damage to the economy caused by high fuel costs.

Investment in public transport is only a small part of the answer. Our working lives (as well as social & domestic) are largely governed by the need for individual mobility. What is required is R&D to develop and bring to market viable alternatives of alternative transport and for Govt to put the fiscal measures in place to encourage the uptake of greener transport.

Blaming the "school run" is old school roustabout political point scoring

Well on the basis that no one will shop at Tesco if it works out more expensive, the cost of fuel + food must be less than the premium they were paying for the food localy.

No. This model doesn't (currently) work. It's down to economies of scale - largely for purchasing power, but also on transportation costs...

My mother used to run a small village shop. The shopkeeper has to pay more for the wholesale goods than are oftern charged retail by the supermarketss!!!

And the shopkeeper still has to pay for the fuel / transport costs to get the goods out to the rural location.

Just doesn't work.

I think his point was, if transport gets so expensive that it's cheaper to shop at the local shop (with inflated prices) than drive to tesco and do your shopping, people will shop at the local shop

Until then, the fact tesco opened has made life cheaper for you/your village

I'd say option C - parent gets home at 4.00. 🙂

Not for transporting goods it's not. Along side other factors it's pushing the price of a weekly shop through the roof.

What percentage of the cost of your weekly shop is down to fuel prices?

As others have said, when people stop making unnecessary journeys, drive more economical cars, and obey the speed limit, then I will be convinced that fuel is the correct price.

I've just worked out that my 400-mile round trip last weekend cost £14 for each of the three of us - that's very cheap. But then my car does over 60mpg if driven within the 70mph limit.

Lifer - Member
How long extra?

Good question and to be honest I don't know exactly.
On the way into work it doesn't really matter, as my official hours mean I don't need to start until 9am, but I leave with ample time or I get stuck in too much traffic.

On the way home it's probably 10 mins, although that is purely a guess....I can't give any real figures, but it does seem to take longer to get home from work.

Of course, when I drive into Peterborough at the weekend, there is no point going above 60mph, as there are frequent roundabouts and it soon goes down to 50mph. When doing this drive I keep my speed down, lift off on the approach to roundabouts a lot sooner etc. and it makes very little difference to the journey time but can easily give an extra 5-6mpg.

Walking primary and younger kids to / from school is utterly dependent on going back to the old days of one parent working / one parent staying at home.... so feasible for those who are very well off - or on benefits.

Or where one parent works days, and one parent works nights, which is what my parents did, my mum dropped us off and dad picked us up, and we started walking to/from school by ourselves from the age of about 10.

A - 6 YO walks home at 3:30pm (in the dark in winter), lets themselves in and waits in an empty house until parent gets home at 17:30-18:00

B - 6 YO gets picked up from after school club at 17:30 and driven home. Parent is driving because they have just driven home from work...?

If it helps at all, I did mention in my first post that I have no issue at all with people picking up and dropping off on their way to and from work (I'd be hypocritical otherwise). Neither is picking up from after school club really "school run" in that it doesn't impact on the amount of traffic movement around school at kicking out time (which along with making children think it's normal to walk rather than drive is the real issue rather than any environmental one IMHO).

Oh yes, and as already alluded, plenty of people can afford to go part time and so be there to walk there kids. Plenty of people go part time, yet still drive.

Walking primary and younger kids to / from school is utterly dependent on going back to the old days of one parent working / one parent staying at home.... so feasible for those who are very well off - or on benefits.

Yes, yes, we all know there are perfectly valid [s]excuses[/s] exceptions, but I didn't think I'd need to spell out every possible permutation.

Im future I won't make the mistake of assuming STW-ers are even vaguely intelligent.

I dont doubt that global warming is happening and that mankind is contributing, but I do think we might have lost our marbles tying ourselves in knots over it. We've had our industrial revolution, the Chinese and Indians are going to have theirs now.

But yeh, want a cut in fuel duty? Tell me what other tax you want to pay......and by you I mean YOU, not some other sucker.

Absolutely spot on. Put it on income tax and watch everyone whine.

"I want decent services and private mode of transport. WHAT?? I have to pay something towards them? Outrageous! Get the Tories/Labour/Whoever out!"

..There are factors operating at scales beyond the control of individuals which mean adapting is not possible... (in a few hypothetical scenarios which in reality affect almost nobody)

FIFY

🙂

come on, there was an oil-crisis thing in the 70's, we've known since then, if not before, that the age of expensive transport was coming.

(this is all very easy for me to say, i live and work in the same city, i'm a clueless gobby tit)

So I’ve read some of the arguments (but not the stuff that says “walk to school – at what age??”)

You’ll never make me change my mind on this, all the arguments about it only costing “a few pence more” are irrelevant in my eyes. I see the continued taxation on movement (on whatever, be it food, consumer goods, people, fuel, etc..) wrong and limiting in a society which should have the right to come and go and choose what to/where to whatever they wish.
Fuel duty in it’s limited blunt instrument is wrong att he very first instance, should never have been put in place and should be scrapped. At best we’ll never be able to do that, so my first point raised to limit it to £1.00 pre litre hold true as a compromise between supplying the fuel to the pumps, running the pumps and roughly half in duty. This should be the model to go forward with and nothing else, ever.

If you want move tax raised, cut the NHS outlay, MOD, Subsidies to EU, Local Councils, all the other expenditure we don’t see on projects like CERN and the like.

IMHO.

Next

as consumers generally use unleaded and businesses, deisel.

I dont get this bit. (spelling corrected)

I see the continued taxation on movement

It's not a tax on movement.

If you want move tax raised, cut the NHS outlay, MOD, Subsidies to EU, Local Councils, all the other expenditure we don’t see on projects like CERN [b]and the like.[/b]

I can see you've thought this through.

So, we have to pay for other's lifestyle choices then?
Its like having children - coincidentally another lifestyle choice - why should I have to pay extra taxes to pay for you?

You’ll never make me change my mind on this

Why are you here then? Perhaps you've convinced yourself that there's a magic place where roads build themselves, and costs to society such as emergency services, air pollution and congestion are all paid for by the money trees.

are all paid for by the money trees.

it could be argued that quantitative easing is doing just this..

I'm here to see what you think, I see it now thanks.

Whats all this nonsense about children having to be escorted to school - its a new phenomenon mainly developed since the nonsense "choice" agenda in schools increased journey lengths.

children always used to walk to school unaccompanied and still should do so. No one was accompanied to my secondary school. Crime was significantly higher then than now.

Bikebouy - so you think driving should have a massive subsidy - how are you going to pay for all the costs of motoring? Is this not rather unfair on non drivers?

petrol is far too cheap - taxes raised of motoring doe not cover teh costs to the country of motoring by a long way.

The costs of all the dead and injured - both directly and indirectly

the cost of enforcing motoring law

Myriad other costs

Two years ago a colleague moved house. Petrol was as/more expensive then than it is now.

There's 36 miles between where they both work. They bought a house in the middle, so he has a 21 mile drive to work and she has a 27 mile drive. As a result, they have to run two cars and they're apparently spending £500 a month on fuel.

There are no public transport options for their commutes from where they live.

If people know fuel is expensive, but they do nothing about it and seem to accept paying it then that's their problem.

Nope I don't think it should have a subsidy at all, nor a tax on it, but I see I'm in the minority here, we're all cyclists afterall and for some it's thier only form of transport, which is great. But not everyone lives like that. Some don't want to, don't care to or look down on those that are in the rightious cause.

But it's ok to have an opinion thats different.

Fuel duty in it’s limited blunt instrument is wrong att he very first instance

bikebouy - Member
Nope I don't think it should have a subsidy at all

Duty needs to go up a load then.

pretty sure TJ has got some cost driving vs cost of public transport over the years driving IS subsidised

So if I understand correctly.... lets all subsidise fat bastards who can't be arsed walking, and want to drive everywhere in huge cars, by doing away with such unnecessary crap as the NHS

Christ! You're onto something here. Why had this never occur to me before. Tell you what, it'll have a serious impact on the whole over-population thing. You're clearly a visionary 😀

Nope I don't think it should have a subsidy at all, nor a tax on it,

Out of interest, how would you see it paid for?