'The DOT will need the whole of Canary Wharf to answer the letters'
Page 48
If you've noticed an error in this article please click here to report it so we can fix it.
gwh ere will the UK road haulage industry be by 2000? With the
help of the present Government the outlook is bleak. Road transport will face the same fate as fishing, mining and many other British industries redundant.
If the Government continues to burden this industry with more rules and more taxation—as I believe the Chancellor Kenneth Clarke intends to do in the autumn budget—haulage companies will be forced to go abroad to survive.
On the Continent costs are lower all around. Hauliers who take their operations overseas will no longer have to contribute astronomical taxes to the Exchequer and they will be able to use UK roads free; at least until tolls are introduced.
The Department of Transport proposes that UK hauliers must pay ridiculous motorway tolls in addition to everything else, including an extra £1,000 road tax. British hauliers will pay the full amount but foreign hauliers will just pay for the days they are here, if indeed there are any checks at the ports. I suspect there won't be.
With lower vehicle excise duty in Europe and less motorway taxation, foreign hauliers will have the best of both worlds when full cabotage is in force, They will be able to undercut any remaining hauliers left in Britain. If most of the work is done by Continental hauliers how will the Chancellor of the Exchequer find the money? By imposing super taxation on the hauliers remaining perhaps?
I urge Kenneth Clarke to think very carefully about what he will do in November.
Will he be courageous and scrap VED, replacing it with a fuel surcharge as I have argued consistently, at the same time urging his opposite numbers in Europe to do likewise? This option would produce a level playing field.
It is because so much manufacturing is now based abroad that our import bill is so high. The haulage industry may well go down the same road if we are not careful. British hauliers must pick up pen and paper and write to the Government-it will be too late to start complaining when they are out of business.
I speak to many hauliers on these issues and they tell me we should get organised like the French or the Dutch. When I say, "Let's do it," and begin to organise, everyone backs down.
So what is the answer? There are at least 120,000 operators in the UK If each and every one of them writes letters of protest the DOT will need the whole of Canary Wharf for the staff required to answer and type the letters.
There's no time like the present.