di We have just completed what must have been one of
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the busiest months the company has ever experienced. This could not have been achieved without the co-operation and professional attitude of all our staff.
But what we achieved could not have been done with a 48-hour week. I, like everybody in our industry, am extremely concerned about the effects of the Working Time Directive. We have all read an awful lot about this, including the contribution of MEP Stephen Hughes who was attempting to reduce the night-time working from 10 hours to eight. You have to ask yourself what planet this MEP comes from because it shows a lack of understanding of UK plc and its transport infrastructure. Nothing must be allowed to divert night deliveries onto the daytime schedules and I need not explain this. With regard to the hours we are required to work to complete our customers' deliveries, nobody should have to work 60 hours-plus a week every week, but 48 hours would be unworkable as an average.
I asked the Road Haulage Association what it is doing to object to the directive. The good news is that the government is talking to the trade associations to get a response from the transport industry. Hopefully the government will take more notice of the trade associations than us "whingeing truckers"—as we were described by MP Andrew Bennett, a member of the Transport Select Committee, at a recent hearing I attended.
On the subject of the select committee we saw its chairman Gwyneth Dunwoody sacked by the Prime Minister, evident r because she had criticised the government over its transport policy. This caused more than just a ripple among backbenchers and even Betty Boothroyd rallied to the cause. I'm delighted common sense won the day and MPs reinstated her. Tony Blair should take heed.
I could not be on this page without mentioning the fuel demonstrations. It has been reported in the press that they caused an awful lot of problems without gaining very much. What utter rubbish! If we had done nothing we would have gained nothing. The trucks in Park Lane and at all the other demonstrations all over the country gained us the media coverage we so desperately needed. The general public learned what a terrible state the transport industry is in. This is what got the fuel escalator stopped. Following the fuel protests a reduction in VED was promised and delivered. We operate 16 vehicles and the refunds were well worth having: for the first time we could afford to increase our gross vehicle weights from 32 tonnes to 38 and 41tonnes.
The government had a nasty shock over support for the fuel demonstrations. While we were at the Hyde Park demo in November, the Road Transport Forum was having the details of the Budget explained by Gordon Brown. Worried or what? Did he go or was he sent?
The government says there is over-capacity in the industry but the number of hauliers is dwindling fast. Every week we read of those who have gone bankrupt or family hauliers like us who have closed down before they lose everything. It is the same problem— high fuel duty and low rates which mean they cannot earn a living.
It has always been a hard industry and it's not going to get any easier. Those of us who are left are going to be very busy.