Forum fury over blunt rejection
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• Road Haulage Association national chairman John Bridge is seeking an urgent meeting with fellow members of the Fuel Forum.
This follows an outright rejection of the forum's demands by Transport Minister Lord Macdonald. In a letter to Bridge, Macdonald says: "I must say clearly, however, that no government, whatever its political colour, can have its taxation policies dictated by threats and intimidation."
He adds that taxation and duty rates are the responsibility of the Treasury—raising the question as to why no Treasury officials were present at the meeting with the Fuel Forum.
Macdonald insisted that the burden of taxa
tion as a whole in the UK is approximately the same for UK firms as it is for their Continental competitors: he called for a "more competitive and professional haulage sector".
Bridge commented: "We have responded to that letter very robustly. Most of it reiterates the rubbish that we have been getting from the government over the past three years. We have asked the Treasury for a meeting.'
Frank Steers, a member of the Fuel Forum's committee, describes the letter as an "insult to our intelligence". "We went there to discuss one matter—and that's fuel," he adds. "The letter waffles on about everything else but doesn't address the one issue we all wanted to talk about."