The SNP last night seized on an AA survey to show drivers are increasingly holding the UK government responsible for sky high fuel prices.
The study — published a week before the Commons finishes debating the UK Finance Bill authorising the budget — also shows motorists would vote for a different government should fuel prices rise to between 125p and 149p a litre.
In Scotland prices in many places are already above 125p a litre.
Among issues which may be considered next week, as MPs complete their consideration of the legislation, is the SNP’s proposed fuel duty regulator, which would divert some of the revenue raised from VAT added to prices at the pumps to ease price spikes.
SNP Treasury spokesman Stewart Hosie, MP for Dundee East, said it was no surprise people had little faith in Mr Brown on fuel prices, adding: “Pleas from across Scotland, where prices already top 125p per litre, are falling on deaf ears.
“While the government rakes in an additional £6billion in revenue from rising prices, Scotland’s hard-pressed motorists and key industries like farming, fishing and hauliers face real pain.”
He said the plan to adjust the duty on fuel when the price of oil goes up, stabilising the price, is winning support across the country.
Meanwhile, First Minister Alex Salmond said Mr Brown’s call for oil wealth to be recycled from producing states and invested inter- nationally needed to be matched with a commitment to recycle Westminster’s oil windfall to bring relief to the economy and individuals.
He is to demand a share of the windfall the government will receive from North Sea oil taxation at the first meeting of UK and devolved administration ministers tomorrow.
He said the UK Government “is gathering in a multi-billion pound tax windfall from high oil prices, which needs to be recycled in helping hard-pressed families and the wider economy”.
But Dundee West Labour MP Jim McGovern said government revenue and spending figures show “Scotland receives £10billion more as part of the UK than it pays in tax”.
He said the SNP had misused the figures.