Political
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P. AND I. REPORT EXPECTED SOON
THE final report of the National Board for Prices and Incomes on road haulage will be published "in the very near future".
Announcing this in the Commons this week, Mr. William Rodgers, Under-secretary for Economic Affairs, said that the report was expected to record progress which had been made on terminal and handling arrangements in distribution.
He was replying to a series of questions about road haulage from Mr. Geoffrey Howe (Tory, Bebington).
MPs asked how many times the NEDC on distribution had studied the problems arising from the development in the distributive sector of working hours differing from those prevalent in the transport and manufacturing industries and was told that this had been considered on four occasions.
Replying to another question of Mr. Howe, Mr. Rodgers said that if actual working hours remained unchanged it was estimated that the Road Haulage Wages Council proposals would increase haulage earnings by about 7 per cent.
An increase of this size could only be justified under the criteria laid down in the White Paper on Prices and Incomes if the industry, through its newly formed Productivity Committee, could effect worthwhile improvements in efficiency.
'Remove fuel duty' WIDESPREAD and highly organized representations had been made by local authorities about the abolition of the duty on bus fuel oil said Mr. Niall MacDermot, Financial Secretary to the Treasury, in the Commons this week.
These representations were perfectly properly made but any proposition to increase the grant of 6d. a gallon had to be looked at against our economic situation and the increased demands of public expenditure on our resources.
Last year when the grant was made it cost over £4m. a year.