The government has finally accepted that cabotage has a wider impact on the UK's transport industry than previous reports have suggested. This admission, in a report from the Department for Transport's Road Haulage Task Group, rejects the previous government claim that cabotage affected less that 5% of the UK's road transport industry. The task group puts the figure closer to 15%.
James Hookham, deputy chief executive at the Freight Transport Association and one of the key negotiators
on the task group, says: "It's the biggest single thing that the task group has achieved. I don't think the government had any idea that this was going on. "We have now quantified this to the standard the Treasury requires in order to take action."
The report, published on December 6th, also urges the government to introduce a vignette system to charge foreign operators entering the country. This would have the additional benefit of forcing foreign operators to identify themselves prior to entering the country, as demanded by the FTA and Road Haulage Association.
RHA chief executive Roger King is confident that the Chancellor will now take notice of the industry's problems: "I think a fairly bullish and aggressive approach on our part has paid dividends."
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