COMMENT
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No news is...
bad news
There used to be a time when no news was good news, but for hauliers anxiously listening in to Gordon Brown's pre-Budget statement this week, it was almost worse than bad news.
All right, the fuel duty escalator is, at last, to be consigned to history, bringing an end to the automatic increase of 6% above inflation that has crippled British hauliers' competitiveness for years. But Gordon Brown's statement that duty on fuel will now be calculated Budget by Budget is, in many ways, worse.
There is nothing, for example, to stop him continuing to raise fuel by 6% above inflation for evermore. Or to stop him making the increase lo% above inflation, should he feel like it next spring.
Unlikely, we know. But with the escalator in place, hauliers had some chance of working out their future costs and preparing for them. This way, they are faced only with uncertainty hardly a recipe to encourage small businesses, is it?
Even if Brown decides next spring to freeze duty on fuel completely, British hauliers will still be facing some of the highest fuel costs in the world. Not to mention some of the highest VED rates. So while the form of words used up to now to describe the government's policy will disappear, the policy itself could go on and on. A policy to encourage enterprise? Don't make us laugh!
Even the consolation of ringfencing money from future duty increases for road infrastructure improvements will be of little comfort. But foreign operators who pay nothing towards the British road system must be cheering. Not only will they have fewer British hauliers to compete with, they will have even better roads to do so on.
Just whose side is Gordon Brown actually on?