• COMMENT BUDGET
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• A budget is normally a bitter pill, occasionally laced with a bit of sweetness. This year's effort from Chancellor Nigel Lawson could best be described as a sleeping pill with just a hint of flavour.
It is true that a law-abiding haulier will probably be better off than he was before as a result of the concessions which are to be made on VAT records and payments, and he may find it easier to pass a business on to the next generation.
It is certain that a law-abiding haulier will be better off than he might have been had the Chancellor followed tradition rather than last year's precedent, and put up vehicle excise duty (VED) in line with inflation, and done the same with the tax on fuel. For the very reason that Lawson did not do such things, the budget must be welcomed, at least in the short term.
The less law-abiding haulier, like the one who 'pays' for VED with an invalid cheque, will be worse off as a result of this budget, and deservedly so in most cases. Massive fines might seem like overkill, but if they serve to clean up a section of the industry to the benefit of the industry's image as a whole, then they are more than justified.
The real point about this budget is that it might as well have not been a budget at all. Surely it was only a combination of tradition and over-hyped expectations that made the Chancellor deliver this speech at all on Tuesday. The few moves he announced could have been announced at any time, without altering their effect at all. In so doing, the Chancellor would have saved the country from the decision-making paralysis and panic stocking from which it always suffers in the days leading up to this hoary old ceremony.
If he had to make a budget speech at all, Lawson would have done everybody (perhaps even the Tory party's election chances) a greater service by tackling some of the real inequities in this country's fiscal system. A good example would have been scrapping the special car tax which loads so many of the industry's costs. A positive cut in fuel duty, instead of a tiny one through the stealth of relying on inflation to do it, would have helped. (After all, Britain's VED and fuel taxes are still by far the highest in Europe).
As it is, the country stopped to listen for an hour on Tuesday, but the national economy on whose recovery the haulage industry depends for its future barely stirred in its slumber.