Take the money...
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Have you ever been tempted—or forced by financial difficulties—to consider leaving the industry? If so, you may be one of many who will welcome Lord Bradshaw's proposals to pay hauliers to scrap their vehicles and get out of the business.
Cynics will suggest that the authorities have been trying to make hauliers quit for many a year by imposing impossibly high taxation and Draconian regulatory powers. And they'd be right, of course.
But Bradshaw, who sits on the Commission for Integrated Transport, says it will be better for many to leave the industry with some capital to play with than to stay in until bankruptcy forces them out. And he's also right The key issue, inevitably, will be how much hauliers will be paid to go away. Unless it's enough to allow them to quit without debt, it's going nowhere. But if the authorities were to look at the haulier's net assets or the value of the business as a going concern and pay a reasonable sum for these, many smaller players who have scraped an uncertain living for years may well want to take the money and run.
What such hauliers would do next, of course, is a moot point. And whether the government could ever realistically buy into a scheme that would increase unemployment and cost the voting taxpayer is also open to question.
• Surprise, surprise. The latest Haulage Forum has come and gone without anything concrete emerging. John Bridge may feel Lord MacDonald has a "commitment to ensuring that fuel is an important part of the way ahead", but actions speak louder then words. We await next week's Budget statement with interest.