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Non-permissive society

18th September 1982
Page 30
Page 30, 18th September 1982 — Non-permissive society
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Which of the following most accurately describes the problem?

AT THIS TIME of year British international hauliers' thoughts turn to permits as automatically as young men's fancy is said to turn elsewhere in the spring.

The conventional wisdom is that they are all hoping (against the evidence, it must be said) that the annual negotiations — haggle might be a more appropriate word — between the Department of Transport and its opposite numbers in Paris, Bonn, Rome, Belgrade and Vienna will lead to vast increases in the quotas which currently limit the supply of these invaluable documents.

They also hope, against even more evidence, that the European Commission will propose a large and, for once, straighforward increase in the Community Quota, and that the Council of Ministers will act on this without any of the wrangles which have led to such miniscule increases — or even a total standstill — in recent years.

The reality is more complicated, as is the habit of reality.

There are indeed hauliers whose traffic is iimited by their inability to obtain more permits. At any time it is galling to be deprived of opportunities to earn money because of bureaucratic formalities. In the depth of a recession it is sickening.

But there are heretics who view the matter in a different light. They see more permits as more competition, which they equate with lower rates. They point out that this is what happened when, in 1979, it was agreed the West German quota should be more than doubled.

The heretics will add that British hauliers' generally lower costs mean that some of the additional permits are used to capture traffic from hauliers from the country which has increased the quota. This naturally displeases the Road Haulage Association's foreign equivalent, which therefore leans on its Government to block further increases. Again using West Germany as an example, it points out that no increase has been agreed since the 1979 doubling. Would it not be better, they ask, to have regular, if smaller, increases?

Nor are the heretics any happier at the prospect of more EEC permits. As was shown in a letter published recently on CM'S Dear Sir page, the United Kingdom's percentage share of these permits has consistently declined over the past five years because successive Ministers of Transport have acquiesced in the use of a formula which discriminates against Britain. An increase this year, they assume, would simply continue the decline still further.

However, the total number of permits available is not the main theme of the dissidents. Most hauliers, even if they have reservations about the desirability of total liberalisation, would like to see quotas increased. Much less of a consensus exists over how available permits should be distributed.

At present this thankless task is the sole responsibility of the Department of Transport's International Road Freight Office (IRFO) in Newcastle on Tyne. Although, as they point out on every possible occasion, they apply criteria discussed with the RHA and FTA, the responsibility is theirs. IRFO staff are civil servants, and in the last resort the Transport Minister is responsible for their actions.

This is quite different from decisions by the Licensing Authorities, which are independent of Ministerial control. However, there is no evidence that Ministers intervene in individual permit cases. Nevertheless, they could intervene, and since the whole process is carried out, if not in secrecy, at least in privacy, justice is not seen to be done.

The lack of publicity about which firms get what has led to one of the major complaints about the system. This is that while some firms have a desperate need for more permits, others have more than they need. Yet despite this, 'RFC repeats the allocations made to the second category of firm from year to year, and even grant them increases when these can be made, even though it is clear from IRFO's own records that the hauliers concerned do not need all they are alloted.

Far from denying that this happens, IRFO has argued that fluctuations in commercial avtivity make it impossible for every firm to use every permit each year. By allocating more permits than the total available, by an amount calculated to allow for this, they claim that no permits are wasted.

The theory is sound. Quite apart from long-term fluctuations, bad weather, a strike, or other causes outside the haulier's control, can easily cause traffic expected towards the end of one year to be delayed until the start of the next. Calculated under-use on a small scale would be not only tolerable but sensible.

But no one outside IRFO knows whether the scale is small; each haulier's allocation and the use he makes of it is a closely guarded secret. Even thi RHA and Freight Transport Association do not have access to this information, despite thei involvement in determining the allocation criteria. The contrast with the information published about '0' licensing in Applications and Decisions is startling. • In the mid-1970s the RHA seemed to have persuaded the Department of Transport that more information should be published. However, at the last minute the Department took fright — ostensibly because of the amount of work involved, though the inevitability of rows . about the facts which would have been revealed must have played a part in the decision.

Under-use should diminish a! a result of minor changes announced by the Department last month. But the details will still not be published, so no one will know the effect.

It seems an extraordinary war. to distribute such valuable documents; even forgeries are reported to have changed hand: at £30 or more. The industry surely ought to devise a better, and more open, method. This is not a problem which is going to vanish, or even diminish significantly, in the foreseeable future.


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