May close to lifting fuel duty freeze to help meet NHS promises

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The government is close to lifting its eight-year long freeze on fuel duty to raise billions of pounds to help meet pressure from cabinet ministers to boost public spending while also continuing to reduce the deficit.

An inflation-linked increase would raise 800m extra for Treasury coffers next year - and billions more over subsequent years - to help pay for Theresa May's promise to spend an additional 20bn on the National Health Service by 2023, a pledge which the prime minister had said would partly be funded through a "Brexit dividend".

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