Fuel tax hikes to reduce emissions will significantly increase regional inequality in UK
Context:
- An obvious way to reduce the emission of greenhouse gasses is to increase fuel taxes as a way of discouraging diesel and petrol consumption.
Findings:
- Change in spatial flows of internal trade as a result of raising the cost of fuel have measurable energy justice implications: peripheral regions of the economy, in rural and coastal areas and many city outskirts are most vulnerable, as are petrochemical, agricultural and connected sectors.
- Given that the UK is already one of the most regionally unequal countries in Europe, the effect of further exacerbating regional inequality is a significant and important finding that has major implications for energy policy, not only for the UK but potentially also for developed countries around the world.
Policy implications:
Certain social groups are over-represented in the criminal justice system. This includes minority ethnic groups, younger people and men. This over-representation is partly a result of differences in offending behaviour and partly a result of systemic effects which act to select some people into the justice system more than others. Our research will examine the extent to which there are inequalities in justice system contact as a result of age, sex and socio-economic status, as well as other factors. We will also examine the extent to which social change has impacted on the relationship between justice inequalities and individual outcomes.
Our current active research projects on justice inequalities are listed below (these link closely with our research on Crime, Socio-Economic, Age and Gender inequalities).