The UK has lost market share in long distance haulage. Lower labour rates and lower taxes on vehicles in parts of the EU have allowed undercutting of UK hauliers. The UK did introduce the HGV levy to require foreign hauliers to make some contribution to road costs in the UK, as otherwise their trucks did not pay VED and they often evaded refuelling here to take advantage of lower taxes elsewhere. This has been cancelled for a year.
Now we are independent we need to reconsider our haulage industry. The first thing should be to restore the HGV levy on foreign trucks using our roads and to make sure the UK haulier does not pay twice for using our highways. The idea of the HGV charge was to make a charge for use of our roads by lorries not paying VED.
We could look at the balance of containers that come to the UK unaccompanied and those coming with a tractor unit and driver from the continent. Maybe more could be brought in more cheaply by a continental driver delivering the container to an EU port and a UK driver picking it up at the UK harbour.
The railway needs to bid for more of the longer distance work within the UK, offering single container or waggon marshalling at sufficient locations where UK drivers and haulage companies can pick up the load for the final delivery journey. This becomes more of an option with the decline of passenger use.
January 7, 2021
You need to sort out the mess to Northern Ireland. Vehicles getting turned back and goods stuck in bonded warehouses.
NI is part of the UK.
January 7, 2021
Not economically it isnât.
Conservative MPs voted for Boris Johnsonâs withdrawal agreement.
Northern Ireland economically remains part of the EU.
January 7, 2021
In what way does âNorthern Ireland economically remain part of the EUâ. I am genuinely interested.
Do they have to remit 20% of their internal UK VAT to Europe?
Do they have to pay a % of their estimated GDP in prostitution and drug taxes to the EU still?
Do they have to remit what is it 75-80% of their rest of the world import tariff/taxes to the EU?
Where do they pay their taxes to? Do they stay in N.Ireland.
Is the UKs GDP now reduced with N.Ireland trade?
Iâm unclear of how economically they are part of the EU. Whereâs your evidence or sources for this?
January 8, 2021
Northern Ireland remains under the jurisdiction of the ECJ as part of the withdrawal agreement. It will remain fullz aligned with EU norms and regulations as a member of the Single-Market.
January 8, 2021
But that is not âeconomicallyâ tied to the EU is it. It is regulatory not economically unless you have evidence to the contrary which I am interested in reading please.
January 7, 2021
Ian Wragg
To be fair have not these companies had long enough to get their ducks in a row.
Maybe the time has come to ship the container only not involving the article and the driver. Must be less costly to delay a container than a man and his cab. Must be a business opportunity here for a company to organize drop off and pick up service.
January 7, 2021
Artic not article
January 7, 2021
Thought we’d sold off NI to make a deal with the EU
January 7, 2021
Correct.
January 7, 2021
The mess that you created by your highly silly little vote, along with countless other messes, all predicted absolutely in detail by the Remain campaigns.
January 7, 2021
Give it a rest.
Zzzzzz
I’m trying out some new leftwing responses that are all the rave on Guido.
January 7, 2021
Is that how you describe the freedom marches of Gandhi & Mandela, “silly little votes”?
January 7, 2021
highly silly little – not wet lettuce then?
January 7, 2021
A semi-detached part now alas, thanks to this rather dire new EU treaty. It will surely also be used by the EU as a Trojan Horse to try to continue to control and tax the UK.
January 7, 2021
Good morning
Great, a new topic.
Ahem ! And there you have it – Too higher taxation.
A certain well known haulier use to register his lorries in Belgium because taxation became too high. If you want more, charge less.
January 7, 2021
Sir John is comfortable talking about what government might do in the future rather than what government is doing right now. Dreaming of a different future rather than taking meaningful action to change the dystopian present.
January 7, 2021
ouch. Straight to the point.
January 7, 2021
Totally correct. You would think that HMG would be constantly monitoring it and adjust accordingly to ensure, at a minimum, parity.
Regrettably as we see regularly, they are not that nimble.
January 7, 2021
Correct – if you want more charge less, and more training plans and training loans.
Railways cause delays, too much disruption from lane closures for bad weather, leaves, track and signalling problems, union action etc.
January 7, 2021
If the protectionist EU will not allow cabotage for U.K. hauliers, there is no reason that we should allow any foreign cabs for container trailers. Obviously specialist loads/vehicles is a different issue.
It doesnât have to be an absolute prohibition. Just encourage/support the investment for efficient loading/unloading of cabless trailers. And get the cost structure right for U.K. cabs to pick up at U.K. ports.
Container traffic is already very efficient and fast, so tipping the balance to reduce the environmentally unfriendly shipping of trailers shouldnât be difficult either.
You could just make it part of the green agenda âNo trailers with containers allowed to unload at U.K. ports: containers only!â
January 7, 2021
The scope for changing the various duties for road usage has not changed significantly since leaving the European Union.
Yes the UK can impose levies for foreign trucks, but that would have to apply equally to all nations, not just to those of the European Union. I see plenty of Russian, Turkish and other trucks on our roads.
All those countries would no doubt reciprocate, and the overall effect would be a dampening down of trade – what else?
As for being “independent” now, in what way was the UK “dependent” upon the European Union in any way that it is not still now?
Hardly existential, was it?
January 7, 2021
What % of of Russian and Turkish trucks do you see in South Wales Martin, seriously, how do you see anything, youâve been on lockdown for months in Wales.
How many Russian and Turkish trucks were held up in Dover when Macron closed the port before Christmas compared to EU trucks? Youâre someone who asks for facts all the time, can you provide any for this statement on haulage?
January 7, 2021
one of those nerds sitting at roundabouts noting down lorry registration numbers?
January 7, 2021
A tedious issue that no one takes an interest in. Let’s focus on your decision to back Johnson’s attack on personal freedoms now that you’ve embraced State authoritarianism, barbaric attacks on our culture and the embrace of a politics that refuses to recognise the divine right of opposition
Your party, its MPs and that slime opposite are laying the foundations of a most sinister future
Reply I did not vote for lockdown
January 7, 2021
Reply to reply
You didn’t vote against either. And you’re still in the Conservative Party. I’d say DOM’s point substantially stands.
January 7, 2021
+1
January 7, 2021
Surely there won’t be any trucks in the UK soon when your economy collapses thanks to Mr Johnson’s stay home policies?
At least that will fit in with UK Net Zero which looks increasingly true in more ways than one!
Polly
January 7, 2021
In the past, carriers switched their operation from rail to road because their deliveries were being frustrated by rail strikes.
Those companies will need guarantees of continuity of rail service if they are going to switch back again.
January 7, 2021
Beeching (and his mate Marples) sort of helped by closing rail lines except main routes. So road traffic was essential, step in Marples.
January 7, 2021
The loss of cabotage rights as part of leaving the EU means that British hauliers are uncompetitive compared to EU hauliers inside the Single-Market.
British hauliers can only deliver a cargo and reload one once inside the Single-Market compared to three times for their EU counterparts who as a result enjoy more flexibility and business opportunities.
Empty or half-empty trucks do not make money.
It is going to be tough for British hauliers to overcome that disadvantage
January 7, 2021
They were uncompetitive whilst we were in the EU.
January 8, 2021
Had they been uncompetitive, they would have been wiped out of existance.
That was not the case.
January 8, 2021
They carried on with work from the UK and elsewhere.
Making a profit as new nations joined the EU with lower fuel and labour costs caused increasing problems for UK hauliers.
Have you ever run a business?
January 7, 2021
Oh I don’t think you’ll find Carrie is in the slightest bit interested in the haulage industry, beyond telling them to stop using diesel.
January 7, 2021
Ah, such a level playing field.
January 7, 2021
British hauliers are one of the big losers out of Brexit.
Before they could travel unfettered anywhere in the EU.
Now they are subject to strict limits about where they can go.
Permits – of which there are limited numbers – are required for each EU country they go to.
A trip to – for example – parts of Italy could easily require five permits. France, Belgium, Germany, Austria, Italy. One for each country they drive through.
We could charge EU hauliers who come here. Switzerland – not in the EU – always has such a system for all motorists. But it would simply be added to the cost of the load and would end up being paid by us, the consumer.
Yesterday the Governor of the Bank of England confirmed the significant economic hit we face from your Brexit. Still some of you pretend there is no such hit.
January 7, 2021
If you are going to put a cost on freedom which a previous generation thought “Priceless” the cost of Brexit will be far, far less than the cost of the Chinese virus exported around the world.
January 7, 2021
I’ve searched the internet to find quotes from the Governor of the Bank of England that says “significant economic hit” which is what you say.
Can you tell me how to find these quotes?
January 8, 2021
Silence came the response.
More fake claims from young Andy.
January 9, 2021
Edward2, you need to keep a log of all Andyâs unanswered âfactâ quotes that he canât substantiate.
January 7, 2021
Sir John, is it correct that the UK haulage industry can no longer get involved in cabotage. The ability to pick up a load in Europe after dropping there and therefore must come back empty. If so does the same apply to EU vehicles dropping a load in the UK. It would seem a bit daft if that is correct.
As for VED. It is not right that it is only U.K. vehicles pay towards the maintenance of our roads.
January 7, 2021
Left hand drive lorries should never have been allowed on our roads. I have often seen artics with EU plates pull out from the inside lane of a motorway with a car next to them in the driverâs blind spot.
January 7, 2021
What about the âlevel playing fieldâ? How can it be right that hauliers can pay less for fuel in Calais than they do in Dover?
There never has been a level playing field.
January 7, 2021
Do you claim that the UK government has no right to impose different fuel taxes from France then?
January 7, 2021
Our Government felt sorry for the Continental countries and gave them an advantage. Kenneth Clarke QC confirmed at the despatch box that we had to pay for new fishing fleets for France, Spain and Portugal to use in our waters to catch our fish âso that they could compete with usâ.
He remains entirely unconcerned that trussed like a chicken, we could not compete. That was the âgentlemanly objectiveâ. More than generous (with other people lives and assets).
Never mind. All over now, democracy has gone because it only works in a homogeneous nation and we have been destroyed in that respect, without ever having been consulted.
January 8, 2021
Very interesting, and important, point, about democracy not working in a highly diverse society. Though I am against democracy in principle, that it is practicable in societies where there is essentially a binary choice between two paths that run broadly in parallel explains its previous success. Now, when there are so many possible paths (though only two, at most, are presented as viable options), vast swathes of people are disenfranchised. This is why we are witnesssing the breakdown of democracy, and this is why so many people look at the democracy that we presently have and see it for the sham it is.
I actually believe that diversity is a good thing – where people with differences are able to find a way to not only live along side one another but to enhance each others existential experience. But when the state attempts to dictate the terms of this process, imposing a uniform approach to coexistence, then we end up with the appalling mess we now see, and individuals are set against one another. Divide and rule? Whether or not that is the intention, it is most assuredly the effect.
January 7, 2021
Level plying field treaty rules means the UK could be taken to the ECJ
January 7, 2021
The haulage industry is headed for a government designed depression greater than any in history just like the rest of the country. Hyperinflation and hunger will concern us more than how the few goods that are available are delivered.
January 7, 2021
Sorry John it is successive Governments which are to blame for introducing a huge range of taxes simply for anyone to use the roads.
You are penalising people and business when there is no sensible alternative.
At one stage it was a joke when people said eventually the government would tax the air we breathe next, now its actually happening with so called pollution charges.
Now we have congestion charges as well, when the roads have barriers, speed humps, chicanes, speed camera’s and the like, deliberately placed to slow down traffic.
Then we have single and double white lines, yellow lines, red lines box junctions, a whole host of different coloured tarmacs, and whole variety of complicated parking restrictions.
Anyone would think the government want to ban vehicles, Oh wait a minute electric only, but no charging points !!!
January 7, 2021
Agree
January 7, 2021
Yes consider what types of container based goods could be dropped off at our ports, for onward movement around UK. Discourage foreign drivers completing the delivery.
January 7, 2021
Road Tolls in mainland Europe also put UK drivers at a disadvantage compared with EU drivers who pay no road tolls here!
January 7, 2021
If we are ever released from imprisonment will we actually see HGVs on the roads?
How can they fit in with all the Greta edicts that Boris follows slavishly?
No return to normal.
Build Back Better.
HGVs.
Really?
January 7, 2021
Third paragraph; Our host is conflating container traffic and unaccompanied trailers, they are not the same, nor is the infrastructure needed to handle them.
Our host has in the past pushed BR, Railtrack and more recently Network Rail to dispose of surplus land, now he expects NR to find areas that can be used as Intermodal transfer points! That said, there are at least to sites that could be re-purposed quickly, one is in the old Oak Common area of west London and the other in the Birmingham area, currently being cleared to make way for
White Elephants… sorry, HS2.January 7, 2021
Absolutely, I was astonished to learn in Macron’s blockade that Eire trucks routine export route to the EU is through the North and England to Dover. It is cheaper and quicker, no doubt at our ultimate cost and disadvantage. Haulage practice and misuse is a practical area of saving the environment not setting dumb unattainable targets.
January 7, 2021
Railways for freight are not the way to go – 19th century solution to a 20th century problem. They are too slow and expensive and can never compete with door to door trucks on timing or cost.
Unless you have your own terminal like cars, steel, coal etc. you need a truck to take the goods to a terminal, (probably 50 miles away), pay the loading charges onto rail, pay the rail freight cost, pay the discharging costs at the destination rail head and get a truck to collect and deliver to destination, then what with the empty container? Take it where, at what cost? Our country is simply too small for this kind of thing and if you are talking J.I.T. forget it, a rail truck is likely to get shunted into some backwater siding and be lost for days. I’ve done it. I once did a study on just this subject for a large international firm and concluded it could not work when I could get a truck from south to north at a predictable time of collection and delivery and much lower cost. Forget rail. Doesn’t even work well for passengers who do all their own loading by walking on etc. and is expensive.
January 7, 2021
I wonder where all these backwater sidings are? Ripped up years ago.
January 8, 2021
Any worthwhile comment on the bulk of my post? Presumably you know all about it.
January 9, 2021
well to suggest all this goods traffic will get shunted into non-existent backwater sidings and forgotten is so 1960s.
Perhaps I do indeed know rather more about it than you do!
In fact car assembly/manufacturing relies on rail delivered JIT unlike decades ago. The problem that is much more real is the integration of long, slow freight trains on lines used by fast and local services, you don’t even mention.
January 9, 2021
I agree with you Graham, The Royal Mail couldnât make rail pay and they had their own lines and trains. If itâs unionised it would be held to ransom all the time when they got the power to empty shops with a group walk out. Then the costs would rocket as theyâd all demand eye watering salaries and pensions and full sick pay, four day weeks (unless it could driverless automated and they wouldnât let that happen the unions are too strong).
January 7, 2021
@graham1946; I’m no eco-worrier but they are correct on one thing, our country simply can not accommodate any great increase in HGV traffic, and with more congestion if you are talking logistics J.I.T. forget it, your HGV trucks are likely to get stuck on some (backwater) road due to your own, another driver’s, or transport planning errors sending a large vehicle on a route or to a delivery address were only perhaps a 3.5 tone van should access, never mind simply being delayed due to road congestion, the fact is, our country is simply too small to have 16 lane highways like in North America that will keep the traffic moving.
It is possible to book space on a container train, from south to north at a predictable time of collection and delivery at much lower cost, and such trains run daily to a published timetable, at a higher average speed than any HGV can legally attain.
Oh and do tell us of a lorry that can transport 20 to 50 ISO 20 to 40ft shipping containers in one trip/load, which is how real costs are kept low, clue it doesn’t even happen in Australia were they have ‘road trains’, on the other hand railways have such trains day of the week!
Forget roads, after all they don’t even work most of the time for personal car use, sometimes it is literally quicker to walk at certain times of the day. Ho-hum. đ
Finally, you ask; ….then what with the empty container?
Might I ask, @graham, what do you with your empty lorry – Duh!
January 7, 2021
The background to the imbalance between UK and European hauliers is based in the level of imports from Europe, the vast majority of which is carried by non-container LGVs.
This will change as imports from non European sources increase because this traffic will enter the country by shipping containers which will be collected from our ports by UK based hauliers. It is also inevitable that some perishables may come in by air.
Ultimately, if we produce more at home then we will import less and may export more. Whether any increase in exports will go to Europe by road only time will tell.
In the long term, the only way to decrease the level of foreign goods vehicles on our roads will be to reduce our imports from the EU which come across the English Channel and the North Sea.
In the short term, I suggest that the LGV Levy on foreign trucks is reintroduced, VED for UK trucks is reduced and a rebate on fuel consumed by vehicles carrying food and other like essentials.
January 7, 2021
This government introduced a policy whereby a foreign truck, once theyâve made their initial UK delivery could remain in the UK for 6 months under-cutting and competing with UK haulage companies but without the same taxation, insurance nor inspection
It was this government that destroyed our haulage industry â those policies need to be reversed immediately
January 7, 2021
glen
If this is correct, utter madness if it is, thenI wonder why some of our haulage companies did not register their lorries in France or elsewhere where it would be as suggested less expensive.
After all ships are no longer registered in the UK for that very reason.
January 7, 2021
All UK/EU haulage firms worked under âcabotageâ satisfactory until the enlargement of the EU when various countries noted and used loopholes to use cheap labour and trucks. By rotating trucks foreign trucks every 6 months they donât have to pay tax, the tacho, MoT and insurance isnât checked by policeâŠ.and nobody checks the licence held by the drive
Same as our fisheries
January 7, 2021
For the 3rd time this government is instructing me to stay at home and at other times restricted my travel movement throughout the UK
But Iâve just received my Vehicle Tax reminder â and its still full price, no discount for complying with government travel instructions
January 7, 2021
we’ve had to pay it whether we drive 1 mile on public roads, or 100,000 per annum.
Abandon it in favour of tax added to users – ie mileage and fuel used.
January 7, 2021
Agree, however our mileage and use is our choice…..the government enforced lockdown isn’t a choice and associated costs/tax should be reduced accordingly
January 7, 2021
@glen cullen, VED is a tax on keeping a motor vehicle on the public road, fuel duty is the tax on use/mileage.
January 8, 2021
road tax is 12 months but due to lockdown we only have access to the road for 9 months – qed we should have a 3 month discount
January 12, 2021
@glen cullen; Except you can SORN your vehicle at the end of any month, if you really will not be keeping it on a public road, so at best your logic suggest HMRC should refund no more than the reaming days of VED for the month a SORN is made.
January 7, 2021
If commuter volumes on the railway are going to be lower in future – then let’s find some way to better use our existing track systems to handle heavy freight – and get that traffic off our roads.
It would require an investment in container handling but would save a great deal of money in the longer term – less being spent on road improvements and maintenance. Smaller (electric) vehicles could then be used for local distribution.
It is also about time that our railway network was automated – if we can have driverless cars – then surely we can find better ways to run/schedule our railways – most particularly overnight.
January 7, 2021
Dear Sir John–Dunno if you remember marshalling yards which needed vast skill and speed to direct and redirecr individual small goods trucks all over the country. Cannot be brought back, more’s the pity, because the sidings that each ststion used to have, not to mention the asscociated signal boxes, have long been turned in to car parks. The tunnel entrance diving off to the right as one leaves Liverpool Street led to the Goods Yard, now ruinous or perhaps now developed (a term of abuse to me).
January 7, 2021
The car parks could be reclaimed now that people arenât allowed to go to work or travel by train!
January 7, 2021
Car parks and housing
January 7, 2021
The first thing that will happen if we restore the HGV levy on foreign trucks using our roads will be that the EU will slap the same (or bigger) levy on our trucks using their roads. This will make our hauliers uneconomic and will shrink the UK haulage industry. Well done Brexit! Eventually you will grasp that we had win-win unrestricted trade in the EU, now we have lose-lose beggar-thy-neighbour restrictions
January 7, 2021
As you say it will therefore make for a level playing field.
Currently the field is not level.
I presume therefore you support this fair measure.
January 7, 2021
Single container freight and wagon marshalling on the railways are not financially viable. This has been proved time and time again. Even Ed Burkhart couldn’t make it work. There is a strong environmental case for rail freight but that case is strongest when the power of a locomotive is used to pull a lot of freight wagons or containers.
Distance of haul is highly relevant. An intermodal journey typically comprises short journeys by road at either end plus a rail journey in the middle. There is a financial cost in the two transfers, road to rail and rail to road, which means that intermodal freight is not financially viable for short distances.
January 7, 2021
The justification for building the channel tunnel included direct freight services from the regions. There was going to be a HGV loading station at Crewe and several other places. This would’ve taken traffic off the M6 which, before Covid, had become almost impassable due to traffic levels.
As soon as they got the service to London, everywhere else was quickly forgotten about. There is no direct service from the north even after all this time.
January 7, 2021
It included direct passenger services too.
The trains were run from the North, but the services were not advertised and you could not buy a ticket. The services were then scrapped for lack of usage – box ticked.
Yes, then the tunnel was then devoted wholly to servicing Home Counties demand, as actually intended all along.
Spot on.
January 7, 2021
ignoring the massive traffic Cardiff would provide?
January 7, 2021
@MiC; Stop talking claptrap, there was no means for the E* or shuttle trains to run to/from the north of the UK, and no other passenger train is permitted to run through the channel tunnel, ask the German DB railway who wanted to run their ICE trains direct from Germany into London if you do not believe me. A DB ICE train did once visit London, but it had to be towed though the tunnel into St Pancras due to incompatible signalling and tunnel safety protocols. On the other hand E* trains did run from London beyond Paris to the south of France (Lyon, Avignon and Marseille), and these services were both advertised and tickets were freely on sale.
January 8, 2021
Well said.
January 8, 2021
I’m sure you’re right about the passenger services. But we were softened up with plans for these freight loading terminals in the north, which never materialised.
Just now I have been watching a programme on the Thames, and apparently they have teams working shifts to install decorative lights on the bridges in London. Up here they’ve turned off the lights on the motorway.
January 7, 2021
BMW oxford send their cars on train wagons via the tunnel, and receive parts back the same way.
January 7, 2021
We should legally oblige ALL cross-channel freight to be unaccompanied.
This would guarantee the work of British hauliers (while also allowing them to maintain a good work-home balance, as they will always be able to get home at night) and will avoid any problems caused by the EU restricting the number of licences they grant British hauliers.
The stupidity of the government in not enforcing this is almost beyond belief.
January 8, 2021
Today there is a fantastic opportunity for The Royal Mail and Parcelforce and other organised courier companies to take back market share from French owned DPD as they have suspended deliveries from GB to N Ireland. Goodness if I was a senior bod at RM or Parcelforce Iâd be rubbing my hands together in glee. These transport companies that can cope needs the news out there of what paperwork is required and theyâve got five days clear without a big competitor in the market. GO.