With the arrival of a new Prime Minister, a new Chancellor and a new Transport Secretary, the time is right to collate an industry wish list. We spoke to everyone from the FTA and RHA to operators and manufacturers to find out what they believe the government needs to do in its first year in office. The issues they raise include the LEZ, incentives for all Euro-5 trucks and the Working Time Directive. You might well agree with this wish list, but if you have other ideas that Mr Brown ought to hear about, let's hear from you.
- A Comprehensive Spending Review commitment to boost investment in transport infrastructure, including funding for a motorway widening programme
- Greater focus on ensuring that the nation's trade routes have sufficient capacity to meet the needs of the growing economy
- Recognition of the need to expand UK ports and develop the road and rail links which serve them
- Act on the suggestions in the Eddington Report which was commissioned by Chancellor Gordon Brown
- Develop the government's reforms to speed up the delivery major new transport infrastructure
- Complete the review of the Working Time Directive without amending the present arrangements.
- Establish a charging system for foreign registered trucks on UK roads and maintain the pressure on the EU and member states over the sharing of vehicle and driver information for enforcement purposes
- Press on with the Local Transport Bill, clarifying the funding of regional and local funding for freight - and come clean about plans for road pricing.
- Review diesel duty, bearing in mind the two scheduled increases in fuel duty over the next nine months and the volatility of the global oil market
- Sort out issues in the hours regs, particularly periods of availability. The Working Time Directive needs to be operated as intended to create a proper 48-hour working week with no loopholes allowing employers to opt out
- Act to ensure that all trucks, irrespective of their countries of origin, are treated the same and meet the same high standard in terms of safety and driver standards. And ensure that foreign firms are no longer able to undercut UK operators by compromising on safety
- Ensure that temporary and agency workers are paid the same as permanent staff and are not exploited
- Encourage the new Transport Secretary to learn to drive a truck so she can understand what it's like for professional drivers.
- Talk to the industry before enacting legislation and make new regs unambiguous. In other words, avoid the confusion caused by digitachs, Euro-4 RPCs and LEZ certification
- Give proper incentives for operators to buy Euro-5 trucks in the form of tax breaks, grants and capital allowances - and award RPCs retrospectively to all those operators who bought Euro-5 trucks, regardless of NOx sensors, and are being penalised for taking the greenest option
- Transfer responsibility for inspections and testing to the CV manufacturers' dealer networks, leaving Vosa to concentrate its resources on enforcement and making sure that foreign-registered trucks running in UK pay their way.
- Impose a freeze on diesel prices until UK operators no longer have to run their wagons on the most expensive diesel in the world - and close the damaging fuel duty difference between the UK and the rest of the EU, as promised in 2001
- Ensure that government policy is to assist help the UK haulage sector remain efficient, flexible, responsive and an EU-leader in safety and compliance
- Put pressure on users of road haulage to abandon unreasonable delivery schedules and penalty clauses which are "un-green" and impose stress on drivers and transport managers
- Improve enforcement against foreign trucks by introducing the Graduated Fixed Penalty and Deposit Scheme without further delay and establishing a foreign truck identification programme
- Raise the 40mph speed limit on single-carriageway trunk roads to 50mph
- Abandon the London Low Emission Zone and block any future schemes that effectively exclude legally compliant LGVs from some of the UK roads that their taxes pay for
- Exclude trucks from local road pricing schemes which work as a tax on essential users
- Develop an effective policy for adequate and secure lorry parking
- Trial longer heavier vehicles on UK roads