Getting the message MPs have voiced their overwhelming support for
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the road freight and haulage industry Words: Chris Druce and Christopher Walton TREASURY MINISTER Danny Alexander told CM last week that road haulage operators are the arteries of the UK economy.
He also said he was aware of the tight margins that haulage companies operate on and that he knows that fuel represents their biggest business cost, alongside staff costs.
By the end of the interview, CM felt it was fair to say that the chief secretary to the Treasury understood our industry and its concerns. The same cannot be said for every politician.
Research conducted by ComRes on behalf of CM revealed that, generally, MPs do not believe the industry is good at communicating with them. Our survey of 150 cross-party MPs found that just two in five (42%) believe the industry is effective at communicating with politicians. But a staggering 86% agreed that the 1,I,UK campaign had been effective in raising the awareness of debates regarding fuel duty in parliament.
Effective campaign Alexander shares the same view: "The 1,I,UK campaign has helped to open up a lot of contact, and has been one of the most consistently effective campaigns, in terms of lobbying and getting the message across, of any campaign I've dealt with."
It may be contrary to the popular line, but our survey of MPs found that they understand the importance of freight and haulage companies to the UK economy in their constituency. Four in every five MPs said they share that view. Those most likely to agree with the statement were Conservative MPs, but Labour too showed strong support. Only the Liberal Democrats disagreed with the statement, but that was only by a small amount.
In response to the findings, Jack Semple, policy director at the Road Haulage Association (RHA), said: "The industry has been in the news of late, for example with the HGV Road User Levy legislation. It was good to see road haulage being recognised and praised by MPs as a vital sector in its own right during the Bill's Ways & Means debate last autumn.
"There is an increasing awareness of the contribution that UK road haulage firms make to the economy and that lorries can no longer be described as noisy brutes with dirty exhausts. We rarely hear the J-word these days."
Semple continued: "The higher awareness of 1,I,UK is neither unexpected nor unwelcome. The 1,I,UK campaign exists because of a decision by the RHA board to change its approach to fuel duty campaigning. It was recognised that the RHA could achieve far more if it worked through an alliance that harnessed the voting power of the general motorist. The 1,I,UK alliance is therefore the primary lobbying activity of the RHA on fuel duty. "I would say that the RHA has succeeded, through FairFuelUK, in turning a haulage tax issue in which MPs had relatively little interest into a major national political issue that no MP could ignore. We should not, of course, forget our alliance partners and the important contribution that they, too have made," he insists.
Karen Dee, director of regional and national policy at the FTA, agreed. "We shouldn't underestimate achieving successive duty freezes, which has happened thanks to the industry working together. Now the government needs to make that final jump [and cut fuel duty]." • • The survey was conducted by ComRes on behalf of Road Transport Media Sample size: 150 AlPs Fieldwork dates: 18 February to 15 March 2013 Weighting: By party and region to be representative of the whole House of Commons Method of data collection: Online or self-completion paper survey • The full data is available online at http://bit.ly/YcBs7b REPRESENTING THE PUBLIC?
Believe it or not, our representatives in parliament are representing public opinion. Our survey showed there was little divergence between the views of MPs and the public regarding the importance of road freight and haulage industry to either constituency economies or the UK economy. Exactly 79% of the public and MPs supported the statements. CM and ComRes surveyed 2,002 members of the public on various issues involving road transport.
• To see what the public thinks about the standard of driving, foreign trucks and tax rebates, see CM next week MPs SEE HAULAGE AS IMPORTANT TO THE ECONOMY They turned out at Westminster to show their support for FFUK ahead of the Budget (CM 7 March), and ComRes has found strong backing among MPs for road transport.
When asked if they thought road freight/haulage companies were an important part of the economy within their constituency, 79% agreed. While 70% of surveyed MPs thought UK road freight had, overall, a positive image, the majority replied affirmatively under the 'tend to agree', rather than 'strongly agree' response category, suggesting scope to improve things further. The research also found a quarter of MPs (25%) claimed to have a poor understanding of the haul age industry, which could mean its economic importance is still not given the status it deserves at parliament.
Strikingly, more than half of MPs (53%) do not view the haulage industry as an effective communicator [with them] at a constituency level.
However, within this context FFUK has paid dividends for its long-term backers, as an overwhelming amount of MPs asked (86%) agreed that the campaign has been effective at raising awareness of the debate around fuel duty within parliament. Is this the reason that we have not seen 13ppl added to the price of diesel during the past two years?