RHA Recovery Group says "Give us a break Mr Livingstone"
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RHA welcomes MPs' findings on foreign trucks
The Road Haulage Association has welcomed the findings of the Transport Select Committee that the high fuel taxes UK hauliers pay compared with their EU rivals are clearly unfair and that the Government should take action.
In its Freight Transport Report, published on Friday last week, the committee states the case that the RHA has been making to the Government for years - and the committee pulls no punches.
“The committee’s strongly-worded support is timely - we made the case again ourselves to Treasury minister Angela Eagle at a meeting only last Wednesday. The government must stop pretending that there is no problem and that in any case nothing can be done,” said RHA Chief Executive Roger King.
“In November 2001, then-Chancellor Gordon Brown promised action in the form of the expensive and ill-fated lorry road user charging project. That is in the past but the issues are more pressing than ever.
“The Government must shake off its inertia and announce clear measures to tackle the issues that we and the transport select committee have so clearly identified. If it cannot announce measures immediately, then the pre-Budget statement presents the ideal alternative,” concluded Roger King.
The Transport Select Committee’s Freight Transport Report included the following paragraphs:
41. The Government should also identify how it will address current anomalies in the costs incurred by UK and Continental hauliers.
116. It is patently unfair that UK hauliers continue to subsidise their Continental competitors through high levels of taxation on fuel, eight years after the Government announced proposals to address this problem. The rising cost of oil and the threat of the liberalisation of European cabotage legislation mean that the problem is set to get significantly worse. We are astonished that work on a vignette scheme has been abandoned with no recognition of the need for an alternative. We note that potential problems connected with European directives or state aid rules seem to have been overcome by other Member States including Germany, Austria, the Czech Republic, Hungary and Slovakia, all of which have implemented or are implementing lorry road user charging schemes. The Government should discuss a way forward with the industry.
112. The Road Haulage Association estimates that UK hauliers pay between £10,000 and £15,000 per HGV more in fuel duty than their Continental competition.
117. Although the announcement of £24 million to assist VOSA with enforcement is welcome, it does not address this distortion of fair competition between European freight operators.
