COMMENT
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Sound the retreat...
Trade associations exist to serve their members' interests. So why has the Road Haulage Association made a policy U-turn on fuel duty protests? This is bound to dismay many of its members—members who waited an awfully long time for it to come out in favour of protests in the first place.
The RHA's reasoning is it wants to wait and let the Transport Select Committee publish its report on unfair competition in the European haulage industry. This does make some sense, in that the report is expected to find that UK hauliers cannot possibly compete with their European counterparts. But many UK hauliers will be disappointed with the RHA's patience.
Many will also remember another Transport Select Committee report a few years ago which wholeheartedly recommended impounding—and look how long it has taken since then for impounding to work its way into legislation.
Even assuming the Transport Select Committee's report fulfills every expectation, action on fuel pricing is unlikely to follow swiftly enough to save thousands more hauliers from going bust. Is this really the best way to serve their interests?
• Further evidence of the lunacy of the Immigration and Asylum Act is provided this week by the sorry tale of TIP Europe, currently facing a fine of L8,000 after four illegal immigrants were found in a trailer it had leased out. There is no suggestion that TIP was in any way responsible for the immigrants being there; it had no way of knowing anything about them. So why on earth should it have to pay up?
Its appeal against the fine must be a rubber stamp job...mustn't it? Watch this space.