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Self-help is the answer
Page 9
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Brian Weatherley welcomes the Burns Inquiry report but wonders whether it will suffer the fate of previous reports sent to the government — and if self-help is a quicker fix for the industry's ills.
Dig and delve within the cabinets of your average senior civil servant and you might find a fading copy of some groundbreaking document, now filed under 'F' for forget. Is that the fate that awaits the Burns Report?
It provides definitive proof of the problems bedeviling UK truck operators (a definite improvement on anecdotal griping). But did it reveal anything we, or for that matter the government, didn't already know?
More importantly, when it comes to addressing the report's key findings — such as making foreign trucks pay their way or the need for a low-cost, simple alternative to the Lorry Road User Charging — does anyone in the industry really expect this government to start throwing switches tomorrow? Or even next year?
in fact you'd be hard-pressed to find something beyond slashing fuel duty that the Department for Transport or the Treasury could do that would have an immediate positive effect. Sadly, it's whistling in the graveyard to expect Gordon Brown to do any more than peg duty. An essential user rebate, though highly desirable, is about as likely as Freddie Flintoff being chosen as principal dancer at the Bolshoi Ballet.
Certainly the industry has every right to ask for financial support, but its recent track record on spending grant cash is hardly encouraging. Witness the woeful take-up of the 2100m Road Haulage Modernisation Fund. What a strange message to send the Treasury and DIY... and if fuel duty did come down, how many operators would be able to bank the difference?
While the Burns Inquiry has confirmed just how badly the industry is treated, the remedy for many of its ills has long rested in the hands of road hauliers themselves. A growing number are beginning realise this. They are applying fuel surcharges — and getting them.
• See Brian Weatherley's'biglorryblog' at www.bizbuzzmedia.com or via www.TNN.co.uk
"Sadly, it's whistling in the graveyard to expect Gordon Brown to do anything more than peg fuel duty"