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'No wonder the haulage industry is in a bad state'
Page 17
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I READ WITH some amusement your article on the leaders of the RHA and FTA meeting the Chancellor of the Exchequer ('Chancellor 'sympathetic' to operators' call for help'. CM 14 February), and, in particular, Roger King's statement that the Chancellor was sympathetic to hauliers' plight.
If there's one thing every UK haulier knows, it's that after 11 years in power this government has never been sympathetic to the industry. It has been treated as a cash cow to pay for other disastrous policies and the government has treated UK hauliers with disdain and disrespect.
UK hauliers pay the highest fuel costs in the world and, as a result, the British haulage industry is dying on its feet. What's more. the Chancellor does not want to tax foreign hauliers because 90% of our goods are imported and we don't want to upset our European neighbours — God forbid!
Yet both the RHA and FTA then allow the Chancellor to ask if there's anything else he can do for the haulage industry. How very patronising! No wonder the haulage industry is in such a bad state when the professional bodies that represent it are so easily led.
But at least Darling is sympathetic. That's OK, then.
Steve Dawes Stratford-upon-Avon Warwickshire