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COMMENT
Page 8
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Will he or won't he?
Hauliers anxiously awaiting Gordon Brown's pre-Budget statement next week may be encouraged by his address to the CBI conference in Birmingham on Monday. Brown stressed the need to encourage a new "enterprise culture" and talked of opening up competition. He even announced tax concessions on share options for managers of small businesses, which it is estimated will cost the Treasury i'Llom, to help encourage enterprise.
But what about the thousands of small businesses being strangled by crippling taxes and competition that is far from open with their Continental counterparts? Never mind the share options, Mr Brown—the question all hauliers want answered is: will you act to reduce Britain's scandalous fuel duty and exorbitant VED rates?
It needn't even cost you any money, if figures from the Road Haulage Association this week are correct. These suggest that a properly devised essential user rebate scheme on fuel duty could be self-financing if it encouraged hauliers to buy their fuel in Britain again. Surely, if Brown and his Treasury colleagues are prepared to lose f4om of revenue to encourage "enterprise" via share option tax concessions, they can't really argue about a self financing scheme that would save hundreds of companies from going under.
At least, you'd think not But perhaps shadow Chancellor Francis Maude is right when he predicts that Brown will give with one hand but take much more with the other.
While we wait to find out, CM urges all its readers to make their feelings plain to the Government once again. Let them know you're still hurting and still demanding change. Because if Brown thinks he can get away with it, our bet is he'll do nothing to encourage the business of haulage—it's just too lucrative to let go.