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Transport Secretary Ruth Kelly has admitted she would need "a lot of persuasion" to allow longer, heavier vehicles (LHVs) on the UK's roads. When questioned in Parliament by Conservative MP for Leominster Bill Wiggin about her plans for LHVs, Kelly said: "I'm yet to receive the research report, but I have no plans to allow super lorries on UK roads [] and would need a lot of persuasion [to do so]."

However she did reveal that the report, which was initially scheduled for release in February,  should be published before Parliament's summer recess beginning on 28 July. Geoff Dossetter, external affairs director at the Freight Transport Association, has criticised the delay, claiming: "It's six months after the report on LHVs was due and yet the government still hasn't delivered it."

Kelly was also questioned by Labour MP for Jarrow Stephen Hepburn on how the government would ensure a level playing field for UK hauliers against their foreign counterparts operating in the UK. She said: "Even the haulage industry decided that a vignette was too complex and costly. Instead we are stepping up our enforcement and have made a £24m investment to ensure foreign trucks don't infringe road safety rules."

When asked by Labour MP for Rhondda Chris Bryant to consider extending the overtaking ban for trucks to other UK motorways, Kelly says the government was reviewing the capacity on the roads. "We want to ensure that when new capacity  is made available through things such as hard-shoulder running, it is used appropriately - which may mean using them as crawler lanes for trucks."

She added that this would be reviewed motorway by motorway.