FTA bosses tell Chancellor:
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et off the fuel escalator!
• by Nikki Daly The Freight Transport Association has called on Chancellor Gordon Brown to use his pre-Budget statement to announce the end of the fuel duty escalator.
Speaking at the ETA's annual dinner in Northern Ireland last week (21 October), director-general David Green repeated the industry's claim that the tax regime is strangling the UK haulage industry and benefiting foreign operators, adding that the problem is particularly acute at a local level.
"The experience of business in Northern Ireland is the clearest sign yet that the fuel duty escalator is not working," he said. "Operators are having to find ways of dealing with the problem by buying fuel in the Republic in order to keep their busi nesses in the black." And speaking in the Midlands, ETA vice-chairman and honorary treasurer Julian Richardson described the whole policy as "crackers".
The fuel duly escalator fails on three counts, he said. First, it threatens UK road transport, which has been hit by a 57% growth of foreign trucks on our roads since 1996. Second, it destroys the British industry's competitiveness. And third, it fails in its stated target of protecting the environment.
"It does not stop a single lorry trip," said Richardson, "A lorry moves because goods need moving. We do not need the government to tell us to conserve fuel and cut lorry miles—we already know that."
Gordon Brown's pre-Budget statement is expected on 9 November.