Hauliers plan new July protest over fuel duty

Members of the Road Haulage Association, the lobby group TransAction 2007 and the Transport Association will lobby parliament on Wednesday 2 July in protest against the high cost of fuel.

Heavy Goods Vehicles will make their way from the M40 Westway south to Westminster, while a foot lobby will be taking the message to the Houses of Parliament.

The action will be designed to pressure the government into postponing or cancelling a planned fuel-duty rise due to come into effect in October.

The Road Haulage Association has previously sought to distance itself from Transaction - a splinter group that does not officially represent hauliers and is made up of organisers of the 2000 fuel protests that brought much of the UK to a standstill.

However, the lobbyists say that they are keen to highlight 'workable solutions' such as the Fuel Duty Regulator -proposed in Scotland - which freezes fuel-duty increases if world oil prices rise above a certain level.

Under the proposal the Exchequer receives the same amount of money from fuel, as duty is reduced to the point where it is balanced by extra revenue from VAT from pump prices.


"Every extra penny on the price of a litre equates to an extra £600 per year per vehicle," said Transport Association Chairman Stephen Taylor.

"We need urgent help to sustain our businesses, yet more and more haulage operators are going to the wall because we now have a situation that is unsustainable".



"Britain's hauliers are going through an unprecedented financial crisis thanks to the huge increase in fuel prices and customers for haulage are finding it increasingly difficult to meet ever-rising fuel surcharges," concluded RHA Chief Executive Roger King.

"Additional haulage costs such as wages, vehicles etc are almost impossible to pass on. Government can and must help. Like the airline industry we are not immune to the effect of price rises on our raw material; the difference is that we cannot get customers to pay the extra before the journey. The UK government cannot stand alone and refuse to consider help. That is why we will be in London on Wednesday".

Meanwhile the Freight Transport Association is taking a slightly more considered approach, making stickers and posters protesting about the high price of fuel available from the FTA website or FTA’s shop.



FTA’s Director of External Affairs, Geoff Dossetter says, "The whole UK population is suffering from the impact of higher oil prices.  However, we believe that the public is sympathetic to the special problems of the transport sector which delivers the goods on which we all rely. High fuel prices for the transport industry contribute to inflation for all of us."


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