An MP writes
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Copy of a letter to John Prescott MP from Andrew Rowe MP: Dear John, Iwrite in connection with an absurd situation, which needs your intervention urgently.
The price of diesel in France is now so much lower than the price in the UK that on a single fill a lorry can save itself between £300£400 after the crossing charges have been taken into account. This means that lorries registered in France and Belgium can come into the UK, undercut British firms while working all week and return to the mainland on Friday to repeat the exercise the following Monday.
The effect of this will very rapidly be that hauliers in my constituency and over a wide swathe of the UK will be put out of business. It goes without saying that the UK Government receives not a penny of either tax or duty from these incoming lorries.
I have sympathy with your desire to reduce the number of lorries on the roads but I have absolutely no sympathy with a policy which simply substitutes for British lorries providing jobs to British people by French and Belgian lorries.
Could you please do something about this immediately?
I am releasing this letter to the media because it is of such tremendous local concern.
Andrew Rowe MP, House of Commons, London SW).