'I understand' pain of families hit by petrol price rises as he hints fuel duty could be cut - Chancellor, Sunak

Rishi Sunak is a British politician and former hedge fund manager who has been Chancellor of the Exchequer since February 2020. A member of the Conservative Party. The Chancellor said with prices at the pumps soaring, he understood the pressure facing families already been whacked by high gas prices and inflation. He defended his decision to increase National Insurance contributions (Nics) from April despite please from his own backbenchers and the opposition to reverse the rise in the tax on working. He said the NHS - which the increase will help fund - 'deserve and need our funding' and the war-exacerbated energy crisis 'hasn't changed the underlying situation'. He also appeared to rule out an increase in defence spending, despite calls for it to go up in the face of the Russian invasions of Ukraine. But pressed on whether he would take action on Wednesday to ease pressure at the pumps - caused by sanctions on Russia over the war of aggression, he said: 'I understand - I have a rural constituency - people are incredibly reliant on their cars and this is one of the biggest bills that people face. 'So we are watching it go up, we are all seeing that and we are all filling up our cars. I get that, that is why we have frozen fuel duty.