Bottomley's speech sparks furious race relations debate
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El Transport Minister Peter Bottomley sparked off a furious debate on race relations in the transport industry when he addressed the RHA conference in Sorrento, in speech which ranged from cabotage to CPCs, he attacked current practice in the industry.
"One of the things that concerns me as I drive around motorways is how few lorry drivers are black or brown", he said. "What I want to see," said Bottomley "is that people are trying to make sure that there is no group in our community which is excluded by custom, attitude or by way of ambition from participating fully in the community."
It was a point quickly responded to from the floor. Ralph Cropper of D Mortimer Transport Services pointed out that the problem was one of language. Our drivers go out and speak to all sorts of people. It's fundamentally important they should speak English fluently and well."
Debate on employment in general and driver shortages followed on with Tom Cooper of the Cooper Group challenging the Minister to find him a driver — "any colour, red, white, black or blue. I'll employ them."
The Minister received a lot of flack on this subject from the floor and from the Chairman, Glyn Samuel. In particular, delegates were worried about wage rates and the mobility of labour.
Bottomley's speech touched on many other areas, including spray suppression. "If I had my way, I'd say that if your lorry hadn't got spray suppression, and your windscreen wipers are on, then you should be driving at least 10 miles per hour below the national speed limit." He pointed out that not all vehicles were required to have such equipment. "We do want to play fair by you, but we don't want to have to legislate for everything that matters."
This brought the response that if the water was not on the road in the first place, having been drained away, the spray problem would disappear. The Minister conceded that prevention was better than cure, but pointed out that it would take more than 20 years to replace all Britain's road surfaces.