Examination of Witnesses (Questions 154
- 159)
WEDNESDAY 15 MARCH 2000
MR RICHARD
TURNER, MR
JAMES HOOKHAM,
MR DAVID
BROWN AND
MR ANDREW
PARKHOUSE
Chairman
154. Good afternoon to you, gentlemen. You are
most warmly welcome to our Committee. May I ask you firstly to
identify yourselves for the record?
(Mr Turner) Good afternoon, Madam Chairman. My name
is Richard Turner. I am Deputy Director General of the FTA.
(Mr Hookham) My name is James Hookham.
I am the Executive Director of Transport Policy of the FTA.
(Mr Brown) David Brown. I am Managing Director of
National Operations, UK, for Exel.
(Mr Parkhouse) Andrew Parkhouse, Head of Policy Development
for Exel.
155. Does anybody want to start with a few personal
words? Mr Turner?
(Mr Turner) Briefly, I would like to remind the Committee
who FTA is because it is important to us that you understand that
FTA is a member organisation with 11,000 members, who operate
nearly half the United Kingdom lorry fleet. Our members also consign
more than 90 per cent of the freight that goes by rail. That makes
us a multimodal organisation and we are dedicated in that role
to improving the efficiency of freight in the supply chain.
(Mr Parkhouse) We are a multinational company, a global
company virtually, with activities in the United Kingdom and in
Europe as well as the Americas and Asia. We employ about 35,000
people worldwide, 21,000 of which are in the United Kingdom. Our
main business is managing supply chains for our customers. A big
part of that of course is managing the operation of the fleet
and warehouses as well.
156. I think we will perhaps want to ask you
a bit more about that, Mr Parkhouse, because I think that is quite
important. To both of you, what particular factors make the British
road haulage industry "part of the most efficient logistics
operations in the world"?
(Mr Turner) Why are we the best? The roots of this
go back to 1968 when the Transport Act gave the United Kingdom
industry a very liberal environment. Prior to that, the road haulage
industry was limited by quantity. After 1968, the road haulage
industry was regulated purely by quality. That was a world leading
change. We were the first in the world to do that. Until recently,
a large part of the world was still in a quantity controlled environment.
It does not encourage people to develop; it does not encourage
skills to develop and the competitiveness of companies to develop.
In places like America, South Africa, most of our European colleagues,
Australia and New Zealand, they were all in a quantity controlled
environment and subsequently they have now gone over to a quality
controlled environment. If you wanted to pick out one thing that
made us the best, that was the change we did in 1968 which liberalised
the industry to become efficient and effective.
(Mr Parkhouse) I would concur with most of that. The
industry in the United Kingdom has advanced with our very advanced
retail system in the United Kingdom. The logistics industry has
had to advance very quickly with it and that has made us very
competitive. It has also made us very creative in the way we deal
with things. I think that has put us at the top of the pile.
157. Is that markedly different from foreign
owned and foreign operated vehicles? Would they not be able to
meet the same sort of circumstances and the same challenge?
(Mr Parkhouse) They would but the market is less well
developed in Europe and therefore perhaps the pressures are slightly
different.
158. I was thinking of coming here. Supposing
they came here. Would they not be able to meet the needs of the
British economic situation in exactly the same way?
(Mr Parkhouse) I think they would. I do not think
they would be quite as well adapted to it as our particular industry
because they have lived with it for many years. I think we have
a very skilled workforce in the people that fulfil the supply
chain for us.
159. It is only the quality of the drivers that
would be different?
(Mr Parkhouse) Not just the drivers, no, but other
people within the industry. The drivers are part of it.
(Mr Brown) We do operate right across Europe as well
as in the United Kingdom. By and large, we follow a pattern of
employing haulage companies within each of the Member States on
the basis that they are focused on the specifics of operating
in that particular country. I do not think it is just a question
of being protectionist in the United Kingdom; it is generally
the operating pattern we follow.
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