RH A calls for mass London truck demo as forum flops
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• by Charles Young The Road Haulage Association is planning a third London truck demonstration next Monday as a direct response to the fruitless meeting of the Industry Forum on Monday which offered no concessions and no hope to struggling hauliers.
Both the RHA and the Freight Transport Association say they are frustrated at Transport Minister Helen Liddell's "failure to grasp the severity of the problem".
At the second meeting of the Forum last Monday the Government remained unconvinced that hauliers are facing dire and immediate financial difficulties as a result of its taxation policy.
FTA president Lawrence Christensen has responded by issuing a joint communique with RHA national chairman John Bridge, stressing their concern.
In it Christensen says: "It was a great disappointment to us that the meeting appeared to lack the urgency that we believe is vital to inject into the debate...We must insist on action on these issues [fuel duty and VEDi now if we are not to see an even worse position develop."
RHA national chairman John Bridge says: The ministers don't appear to understand the desperation of the situation. We haven't got time to talk about what the problem may or may not be."
The RHA is organising the protest in a similar vein to the previous two in London. It is asking all hauliers to come to Park Lane next Monday morning (26 July) and park up. Speeches will follow at Marble Arch at 12:00hrs. At 14:00hrs John Bridge will deliver a letter and statistics to 10 Downing Street; at 14:30hrs hauliers are invited to lobby their MPs at the Palace of Westminster. RHA director-general Steven Norris says that while he does not expect any direct results from the protest it is important to keep up the pressure on the Government. "No individual piece of action delivers results,' he says, "but the sustained campaign starts to make even the most solid of majorities look a bit worried. We need to make sure this becomes a political issue in the main press."
While the campaign has the backing of Trans-Action, co-ordinator Frank Stears sees it as a risk if the large hauliers don't attend. "If they don't show up it will not just be another nail in the coffin, it will be 10 nails in the coffin," he says. "The Government will think they have won." The RHA says it has asked all its members to attend but has put
no extra pressure on its larger members. Of the larger operators CM spoke to, only Dodds confirmed it would be attending.
Last Monday's second Forum meeting—Helen Liddell's first—lasted just short of two hours and discussed the possibility of introducing vignettes and 44-tonners.
Liddell and her Treasury counterpart. Patricia Hewitt, conceded that cabotage now accounts for 01% of total UK freight volume, as opposed to an earlier figure of 0.04%, but they still demanded further statistical evidence of the extent of the problem. They hold this view in spite of detailed figures supplied by the ETA which aim to show that statistical evidence (see box, below).
The RHA also has the results of its faxback questionnaire which was published in CMtwo weeks ago (see box, above) but these figures were not ready in time for the Forum.
Both associations also expressed their anger that they had been singled out in the House of Commons as the cause of the delay of the Forum meeting. Liddell had told the House on 13 July that it proved impossible to find a date as the directors-general of both associations took leave, or were out of the country, and I was keen that they should be able to attend the meeting."
The FTA and RHA stress that they were available at any time for a meeting.
The next Forum is planned for September—and this time representatives of small hauliers will be invited.
• For more information on the protest contact: 01733 261131.