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CONFERENCE CONFRONTATION

19th October 1985
Page 69
Page 69, 19th October 1985 — CONFERENCE CONFRONTATION
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Which of the following most accurately describes the problem?

ROAD I Iaulage Association delegates setting out for the Algarve this weekend for next week's Conference — French air traffic controllers permitting — will no doubt be in cheerful mood. It is not surprising that a tax-deductible, Road Transport Industry Training Board grant-assisted, week in the sun has attracted over 400 people.

But it is a conference, not a holiday. And while the ladies (are there no nonworking husbands of women hauliers, I wonder?) look at Portuguese

embroideries, the hauliers — including, I am sure, some Ladies — will find the business sessions induce a more sober mood.

Enforcement, 0-licensing, magistrates and LAs' views of hauliers — these are all vital topics. They will be dealt with by authoritative speakers, who will no doubt stimulate lively discussion. But few delegates arc likely to emerge from the conference hall with their spirit raised at the prospects revealed during those sessions.

The underlying theme will be one of the syndicate topics — "Do you make the best of your business?"

Appropriately enough, those SCSS1011S will be chaired by RI IA vice-chairman Roy Bowles, who recently put his finger on the central problem. "Hauliers must do more to restore respectable profit margins to the industry," he said (CM, October 5). And since hauliers are in business to make profits their response to what they hear will depend to a large extent on the likely effect on those profits.

This will apply especially to next Tuesday's syndicate sessions on enforcement and 0-licensing. These will be conducted by Patrick Jackson, a Department of Transport Under Secretary. (Those unfamiliar with civil service grades might find it more meaningful to be told that he earns £.3=4,000 a year).

Nicholas Ridley is not sending someone of that importance to Albuteira just to let him top up his suntan. His presence confirms previous reports that the DTp is thinking seriously about important changes its the 0-licensing system, over and above the review of the environmental provisions introduced last year.

No doubt most hauliers could suggest improvements; those at the conference will have a rare opportunity to do so direct to a DTp mandarin. But the DTp thinking goes far beyond improved application forms, simpler Traffic Court

procedures, and similar matters of important detail.

At the Tory Party conference Nicholas Ridley said specifically. if briefly, that he wanted to "enable more people to become road hauliers".

Hauliers might be forgiven for thinking that the gates into die industry are already open pretty wide. But various ways of opening them still wider have been floated in the trade press recently. No doubt sonic of this kite-hying results from off-die-record discussions with people who know what is in Ridley's mind.

In parneular the Bill to de-regulate the bus industry, now in its final stages through Parliament, seems to have turned minds in Marsham Street towards having another look at haulage regulation.

Now, even though F do not share CM editorial enthusiasm for the Ridley bus Bill, I agree that there is a substantial unsatisfied demand for passenger transport. And I accept that rigidities, in legislation and in industrial attitudes (on both sides of the industry), hinder the meeting of that demand. So I support the case for making it easier for that demand to be met. even though I think the impending "remedy" is shaped too much by dogma.

But the situation in road haulage is totally ditierent. TIscre is no unsatisfied demand. On the contrary, there is surplus capacity; that is why Roy Bowles's recent plea was necessary. And as and when new demands arise they can be met iii One of two ways. Existing hauliers can adapt their operations; or newcomers can fill the gap.

The current Dip whispering campaign is only explicable if they think that the 0-licensing system as currently operated keeps out newcomers who ecsuld otherwise meet i demand that is either unsatisfied or only partially satisfied. That does not seem to be the case even in traditionally unpopular specialised sectors of the market such as livestock haulage, or in remote areas Like the Scottish Highlands.

In these circumstances to make it easier for people to enter haulage simply makes life even more difficult for those already in the industry.

Some — Ridley. no doubt, included — would say that private enterprise is all about pleasing the customer, not making life easier for the supplier. But there is a viral difference between a haulier and a corner sweetshop, or a button factory, or an employment bureau, or a window cleaner or almost any other occupation.

If a haulier gets into financial difficulties he can tide himself over for a short period by getting his drivers to work excessive hours, by overloading, by postponing buying new tyres, or by numerous other illegalities which have one common feature — they put the public at risk.

Enforcement, Patrick Jackson's other topic, should put a stop to that. But it doesn't. Indeed, it can't. A few hundred traffic and vehicles examiners cannot possibly make much of an impression on the 120,010 goods vehicles subject to 0-licensing, quite apart from their increased responsibilities for a deregulated bus industry.

While the enforcement effort cannot be abandoned, the examiners must sometimes be despondent at the outcome when, as a result of their efforts, erring operators come before magistrates or LAs. To be fair, the magistrates seem to have stiffened their fines recently, but LAs still seem reluctant to revoke licences even for repeated serious offences.

So honest hauliers lose both ways. And I suggest that delegates to the conference should send their visitors hack to the DTp, the Western Traffic Area and the Magistrates Association with this message: "We do not seek protection from fair competition. But we are entitled to protection from unfair competition. And at present we are not getting it."

It should he a good conference; I hope many readers will be there.

by Janus


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