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Mr. Brown Attacks Haulage Rates

14th May 1965, Page 27
14th May 1965
Page 27
Page 27, 14th May 1965 — Mr. Brown Attacks Haulage Rates
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BRITISH ROAD SERVICES will be LP investigated by the Prices Board, This was made plain by Mr. George Brown, the Economics Minister, during a Commons Debate on Tuesday. "Those who say that we have not referred a nationalized case, or. ought to refer one, , should do their homework ", he said, pointing out that BRS was a member of the Road Haulage Association. " I have little doubt—though it is not for me to say—that the chairman of the Board will be asking BRS to help in the inquiry ", he remarked. Opening the debate on rising prices, Mr. Joseph Godber said that the road haulage industry had suffered from being particularly singled out by the Chancellor in both his Budgets. "I suspect very strongly that that was not wholly for fiscal reasons, but due to the element of prejudice which exists among Members opposite about free enterprise road haulage compared with nationalized rail transport ", he said. One absurdity arose from what Mr. Brown had done about road haulage rates, went on Mr. Godher. The Post Office was increasing very severely its rates on parcels and letters next Monday. Road hauliers had been asked to defer their own pending increase in rates. In viewof the savage nature of the Post Office's increases in parcel rates, some parcels operators were genuinely afraid that there would be such a flood of new business on May 17 that they would be inundated. Mr. Brown told M.P.s that some pretty fantastic consequences had been attributed to the increase in fuel tax. If one were to believe the excuses given for putting up prices on the ground of the increase in this tax, one would think that the country was full of vans, running all over, each carrying one sack of potatoes or one parcel of laundry or one packet of biscuits. If one worked out how much the fuel tax increase entered into the cost of one packet, sack or parcel, one found that it was very much smaller than was being stated and would not justify anything like the increases attributed to it.


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