The haulage industry risks being disproportionably affected by the new so called green taxes, following the Stern Report this week. We have to use large amounts of carbon (i.e. fuel) to keep the country running and we are also unfairly blamed for congestion.
Environment Secretary David Milliband is reported to want to increase fuel tax when the cost of fuel falls and remove the current freeze on fuel duty. It is also possible that high carbon users (i.e. us) will have to pay extra to off-set
the carbon use.
Government should instead develop with the industry a policy that encourages the most environmentally friendly and fuel efficient vehicles and takes older vehicles off the road. If it wants alternative fuels, it needs to give a long-term commitment and give an incentive to use them. And we can't have different rules in different cities.
The test will come with the Chancellor's autumn statement. Oil prices have fallen and the Chancellor will be tempted to increase fuel duty after a long freeze.
The last meeting of the road haulage task group with government took place yesterday. The new environmental fervour of all the political parties means that the challenge now is not to reduce tax but to stop us being burdened with more.
With heavy environmental taxes it is even more important that overseas trucks in the UK pay their fair share of the pollution they create. Why is it so difficult to set up a simple scheme to achieve this?
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