Tie for tit r tat?
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ETA CONFERENCE next k will no doubt have a lively Jssion of the Wood Inquiry's mmendations. The vigour not be at all damped down le fact that Mr Wood himself address the Conference iediately after attending the ting of the GLC Transport imittee which is to discuss t action to take on his report. at same afternoon the new isport Secretary Tom King speak to the Conference. No Dt his speech will have been iared in advance by his civil ants, but it will be a pity (as as a political blunder parable to Norman Tebbit's arks on taxation at the . dinner) if he says nothing it whatever has happened at nty Hall that morning. It ns inconceivable that the ernment will allow drastic bans in the capital, and it Id do no harm if Mr King le that clear.
any circumstances sions on the Wood Inquiry Id inevitably tangle the ads of transport, ronmental, industrial and iloyment policies. The recedentedly hostile political :ionship between Whitehall County Hall makes it look as )articularly lively kitten had at the threads. Public Lion has so far been muted, despite the best efforts of the idon Needs Lorries" paign there is clearly a ger that it might favour )us bans, out of ignorance of onsequences.
le implications for road sport of all this are truly serious, and will rightly preoccupy the industry long after the FTA Conference is over. In the traditional words of the theatre critics, "This show will run and run".
However, there is another type of lorry ban from which hauliers already suffer. By comparison with the threat presented by Wood it affects a relatively small number of operators.
The bans concerned are those on lorry movements at weekends and holiday periods imposed by France, West Germany and some other countries.
These bans do not even begin to approach the economic disaster threatened by some of the most extreme Wood options. In comparison they might seem simply another irritant. In practice they are much more than that.
The fact that the bans distort the operational pattern of international hauliers is obvious. That distortion is bad. However, drivers have by law to have one day off a week, and to some extent schedules can be arranged to make the two blank days coincide.
What is less obvious is the knock-on effect these bans have on the operations of the rollon/roll-off ferry companies. One ferry company claims that the French weekend ban effectively limits its commercial vehicle traffic to a six-day week. That may not seem very important during the summer season, when weekend sailings are full of private motorists on holiday.
But for ten months of the year the commercial vehicle is the ferry companies' staple fare. The effect on overheads of turning one day out of seven into what lawyers call a dies non is obvious. And of course in the end it is the haulier who must pay for this.
The regular speeches by successive Transport Ministers urging their foreign colleagues to adopt a more liberal attitude towards international road haulage have, in the past, usually concentrated on permits and quotas. Although this emphasis will no doubt continue for some time — the Department of Transport's speech-writing machine takes a long time to be re-programmed — in future British Ministers making this sort of speech will be inviting a devastating riposte from their foreign opposite numbers (always assuming they are listening, which is by no means certain). They may point out that British hauliers, as represented by the RHA, have said publicly that they consider that bilateral quotas are big enough, and in general should tot be further increased.
Perhaps, to avoid this, Mr King might turn his attention to other restrictions whose removal would attract the unequivocal support of the RHA. If he does, the weekend lorry bans would provide excellent material. And now that merchant shipping, as well as road haulage, come within his responsibilities he would be able to attack these bans on a broad front.
But speeches alone are not likely to achieve much. As was pointed out in this column some months ago, the protests of other countries' Transport Ministers about our former low vehicle weight limits never made any impression on British Transport Ministers. Why should the reverse process be any different?
There is no evidence that foreign hauliers find their own countries' weekend bans a particular problem. So there is little internal pressure from that quarter for them to be rescinded. And most certainly French and German private motorists would protest loudly if the ban were lifted. Internal political pressures therefore favour retention.
Mr King could deal with this by stressing that he is not concerned with domestic bans, but with their effect on international traffic. The various hazards encountered on long journeys make these especially difficult to schedule, and it is not always possible to arrange to be through a country before a weekend ban comes into force.
He should therefore stress that he is simply asking for international haulage to be added to the existing list of traffic exempt from the ban. It is a very small proportion of the total, and except in the vicinity of the roll-on/roll-off ports, would make no perceptible impact on traffic volumes.
It is a sad fact that sweet reason has little effect in this sort of affair. However effective an orator Mr King may prove, he is not going to change the situation by speeches. Actions are required. Fortunately a simple course of action is at hand.
He can simply say that he believes in reciprocity, and that after a stated date — say, six months ahead — Britain will apply to foreign lorries bans equivalent to those applied to British lorries in those countries. This cannot be regarded as discriminatory, since the bans will be exact imitations.
In the past the RHA has been opposed to this sort of tit-for-tat action because of its possible effect on quota negotiations. But• now that they do not want more permits, this reason for caution loses whatever validity it ever had.
Perhaps we can hope to see, at last, some effective action being taken to mitigate some of the problems faced by our international hauliers. It would certainly be a pleasant change if this were to happen.