THE leader of the Liberal Democrats, Sir Ed Davey, has called on the Prime Minister to include Shropshire in the Rural Fuel Duty Relief Scheme in Parliament.

Sir Ed, speaking during Prime Minister's Questions on Wednesday, challenged Boris Johnson to make life easier for people in rural areas, such as north Shropshire, over fuel increases.

He said that people in Shropshire, as well as Devon where there is an upcoming by-election in Tiverton, would remember the lack of support from the Conservatives.

"Millions of people are suffering across the country because of the cost of living crisis and people in rural areas are bearing the brunt of record fuel price rises," said Sir Ed.

"The Rural Fuel Duty Relief Scheme is supposed to help by taking money off the price of petrol but some counties aren't eligible, like Cumbria, Shropshire and Devon.

"The Conservative Party doesn’t want to hear ideas to help those people and the people of Devon will note that because there are families and pensioners across rural counties who are missing out on this support.

"As petrol prices soar, will the PM accept our idea to help people in rural counties and expand the rural fuel duty relief?"

However, Mr Johnson rebuffed claims that more support is needed and claimed the recent cut on fuel duty would be enough and highlighted energy payments support, despite Sir Ed not mentioning energy in his question.

He said: "We cut fuel duty across the country for everybody by record sums.

"He talks about pensioners but we’re giving £150 more to every pensioner across the country and he talks about the cost of energy but everyone is going to get a further £400 to help them with the cost of energy."

Mr Johnson also took the opportunity to slam the Liberal Democrats for his perceived lack of policies.

He added: "The blissful fact of the Liberal Democrats is that people don’t actually know what their policies are.

"They’re able to go around the country bamboozling the rural communities but not revealing that they are in favour of massive new green taxes.

"And not revealing that they will want to go back straight away to the Common Agricultural Policy with all the bureaucracy and all the cost that that entails.

"They don’t say that on the doorstep. "