He said: "Is there an easy answer in terms of saying in the long run we should cut fuel duty? Clearly, the answer to that is No, because if we look at the one developed country that has very low fuel duty – the US, where petrol and diesel prices are less than half of what they are here – what happens is that people get much more reliant on oil to fuel the economy and when the world oil price changes, there are far more bankruptcies and more repossessions of people's homes."