Some mistake? RHA
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THE Road Haulage Association has written to Chancellor of the Exchequer Nigel Lawson asking whether there has been a mistake in establishing the new rates of vehicle excise duty in the Budget.
Like the ETA (CM, March 171, the RHA believed the Department of Transport's consultation document on ved track cost calculations pointed to a cut in the rate for heavier vehicles and an increase in the rates for lighter lorries. The reverse took place last week.
In a letter to Mr Lawson, RHA director-general Freddie Plaskett said: "Even taking note of the margin claimed by the Secretary of State for Transport for 'unquantifiable environmental costs', this is unfair, discriminatory and clearly flies in the face of the Department of Transport's findings of which you purported to take note."
The RHA believes that the 3.5p per gallon increase in dery tax will increase hauliers' operating costs by around one per cent.
And serious delays are feared at ports as a result of last week's Budget requirement for vat to be paid when goods enter the country.
Both the Road Haulage Association and the Freight Transport Association's British Shippers Council have warned that frontier delays will follow the withdrawal of the 11 weeks' leeway previously permitted before vat should be paid on imports. The RHA said it regretted that the Government had not pressed the EEC to bring its import arrangements into line with the British system something the Government still wants to happen in the long term and has warned that the delays evident in the French/Italian blockades last month could be repeated by this measure.
The BSC said there must be full consultations with shippers before the new procedures are introduced, in order to alleviate their worst potential effects.
According to BSC, the port congestion and delivery delays experienced in Ireland in 1982 will be repeated in Britain if point-of-entry payment is introduced without prior consultation.
The RHA, meantime, has written to Chancellor of the Exchequer Nigel Lawson, asking whether there has been a mistake in establishing the new rates of vehicle excise duty in the Budget.