Select Committee on Environment, Transport and Regional Affairs Minutes of Evidence


Examination of Witnesses (Questions 140 - 153)

WEDNESDAY 8 MARCH 2000

MR ANDREW MALCOLM, MR DERRICK POTTER AND MR KEITH BOARDALL

  140. Have I understood correctly that if there is a two-tonne advantage to road by introducing the 44-tonne lorry, you would encourage more goods to travel by road?
  (Mr Potter) I come back to what I said earlier and that was services first, prices next and people would automatically say they are sorry, but if road is cheaper they are going to use road.

Chairman

  141. That is very helpful. What particular changes to the freight facilities, in particular in relation to grants, do you think ought to be made in order to encourage freight onto the railways?
  (Mr Potter) Looking at the grants which are being made—and that is a useful thing for everyone to do—it tends to favour the larger companies. I am not saying they should not be favoured, but it is the smaller operator which we have to attract and the smaller bits of freight because they as a total make up a larger volume. They also help fill in the gap. My own personal thoughts are, remember that even when the grants are up and running we will probably still only get 20 per cent of freight back from road to rail but at least we shall have achieved something.

  142. Do you think that the pressure on our hauliers of things like rising prices has been to make them more efficient?
  (Mr Potter) Yes, hauliers have become more efficient.

  143. That is a very interesting use of the English language.
  (Mr Potter) Exactly.

  144. If they have to pay more for their fuel and they have to look at their overheads, has it forced them to become more efficient?
  (Mr Potter) Part of that is to do with IT too. The control of information enables them to advance, in other words there are fewer people.

  145. So they are more efficient but there are several different reasons.
  (Mr Potter) There are several different reasons.

  146. Do you think vehicle manufacturers are doing all they could to develop more fuel efficient vehicles?
  (Mr Boardall) We have had significant improvements in that area. We have to realise that we have a conflict coming along. As we are trying to clean up the engine, I understand from the manufacturers that we are at the point where we are now going to get miles/gallon declining. When we go to Euro-3 we will not be getting the same miles/gallon as we are currently getting. That will increase our costs still further, whilst up to now, the improvements have also been giving us improvement in miles/gallon, engine management systems.

  147. Are you affected in any way by a shortage of drivers and are you satisfied that you are going to have access to highly qualified drivers?
  (Mr Malcolm) There certainly is a shortage of skilled HGV drivers. We as a company are currently not seeing an issue with shortage; we do a lot of in-house training. Where the real problem is coming is that the older generation of drivers are now coming up to retirement. Trying to get the same quality in the new breed we are actually encouraging into the industry is getting harder.

  148. Finally, what is the one thing which Government could do which would make a massive difference? After all, forgive me saying so, several times today all three of you have said that what you really want is to be able to compete fairly. You have said that in order to do that you would like the fuel escalator dealt with, but none of you started from the same base as your continental opposite numbers, did you? Before the fuel escalator was imposed, none of you were operating under an identical regime, were you?
  (Mr Boardall) No. I remember when we ran vehicles into Europe and when you got to the French side they had a look in the tank to make sure you were bringing no fuel into France, because if you were they had a little siphon to take it out.

  149. Is that what we want? Little siphons.
  (Mr Boardall) No, the boot is on the other foot. We were buying it in England and we were buying it in our cars to go to France because it was expensive in France. Now it is the other way round.

  150. What are you suggesting?
  (Mr Boardall) I should like to see the Brit-disc. I should like to see the current hours legislation maintained and I should like to see something to get the stress down on our drivers when they are trying to get from A to B. As an industry, we have a very bad image unfortunately. We have a very bad image but in our case we are delivering the food. Mr Malcolm is delivering the bottles to put the food in. It is an essential thing and if you want to go to the supermarket on Sunday afternoon to get a fresh chicken off the shelf—

  151. I do not.
  (Mr Boardall) They do; people do. We have to be there delivering the goods and we do it every day, night and day, Saturdays and Sundays. We only close on Christmas Day morning.

Mr Olner

  152. I understand the difference between the excise duty on fuel in the UK as opposed to France. Is there any difference in the price that the petrol companies charge or levy in the UK to that which they levy on the continent? You have no knowledge on that at all.
  (Mr Boardall) No.

Chairman

  153. You have been extremely patient. May I just send you away with one other little duty. It may be that before this report is completed you will come across facts and figures which will be very useful. The Committee would be grateful for a copy of those. We are very grateful to you for coming. Thank you very much.
  (Mr Boardall) In my letter I have extended an invitation to the Committee to visit our location in north Yorkshire, which is the most efficient and the largest distribution centre of course, to see how it works. I think you would find it interesting.

  Chairman: We did understand that. I shall not quote you to the one in my constituency which thinks it has that ability. It is very kind of you to invite us and we shall certainly consider it but I offer no promises. Thank you very much indeed.





 
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