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QUESTIONS, QUESTIONS...
uestions, questions.. .always questions. For example, how come the French authorities can stall blockade compensation payments yet again? How come Welsh farmers can threaten the livelihood of Irish hauliers? And how come a man who ran six, yes six unlicensed trucks be fined a paltry £1,950? Oh, you want answers too? Here goes. The French can ignore its own compensation claim guidelines because they're under no pressure—least of all from the European Commission—to cough up the money. When Prime Minister Tony Blair extracted that promise from his French counterpart that claims would be met within three months, he should have looked under the table to see if his fingers were crossed. "If legal action is required so be it," says a leading UK transport lawyer. Did anyone ever doubt it would come to this? As for the Welsh farmers, they've managed to take direct action about falling beef prices because they're organised. If British operators showed the same solidarity' on rates, a lot more people in the industry would be proud of their balance sheets, not scared to death by them. And the reason a man can run six unlicensed trucks on a "substantial" haulage operation was because he wasn't sufficiently afraid of being caught to stop doing it—and because there weren't sufficient resources to catch him earlier.
Running one unlicensed truck is bad enough...but six? Having made such a song and dance about tougher enforcement, why isn't this Government actu ally delivering the goods now it's in the driving seat? We need impounding and we need it now. Not later, Mr Prescott— now. Otherwise we can only guess at how many unlicensed operators are still out there. Questions, questions...