Examination of Witnesses (Questions 240-248)
19 MAY 2004
MR ROGER
KING AND
MS KAREN
DEE
Q240 Clive Efford: Have you ever done
an assessment of just how much fuel that is in lorries operating
in the UK is actually bought on the Continent? Have you ever done
a survey of your members to see just how much they try to take
advantage of the lower fuel costs on the Continent?
Mr King: Well, those that are
obviously travelling in Europe will fill up before they come back
into the UK. There are still fuel runs, I think, which use up
spare car ferry time late at night or at the weekends when they
pop across and fill up and come back, and of course there is a
substantial migration of traffic from Northern Ireland into southern
Ireland to fill up there, but for most operators it is not really
an opportunity.
Q241 Clive Efford: For those who operate
in Kent and in the south-east and who face the brunt of the competition
from across the Channel and across Europe it is an option, is
it?
Mr King: It is a limited one because
it depends on the vehicle. If you are a long distance haulier
then it is worth your while filling up with 1,500 litres of fuel,
but that is a considerable weight to carry around. It is not very
environmentally good. The average tank on a vehicle is 400 litres,
therefore by the time you have taken into account the movement
of the vehicle across the Channel, the filling up and bringing
it back there may be some costs savings but not a great deal.
Q242 Clive Efford: But nobody has ever
done any detailed analysis?
Mr King: I think it would be very
difficult to do that as such.
Q243 Clive Efford: Okay. What is preventing
the introduction of lorry road user charging in the UK and do
current plans reduce the argument in favour of fuel tax harmonisation?
Mr King: Well, we welcome the
first phase of the lorry road user charge in that, as the Chancellor
assured us three years ago in the Commons, or when he spoke about
the introduction of the lorry road user charge he said that it
would be tax-neutral, that the charge would be offset by a fuel
reduction, and we welcome that. We have worked with Customs &
Excise, the Treasury and the Department for Transport to help
develop the scheme. What we are less happy with and would not
wish to see proceeded with is what was rolled out last week at
the procurement presentation by the Department for Transport and
the Treasury of phase 2, which includes time variations, further
bands for the road system and zonal, regional and area charges.
Now, we cannot see how that can all remain tax-neutral and that
was not something that we signed up to originally, so we are rather
concerned that we are moving on to what in effect will be another
tax-garnering system because lorries cannot park up and wait for
a cheaper charge to use a particular road or come into a city.
The customer wants the goods and the factory needs the components.
They will have to pay that congestion charge, so it will not actually
have any difference in being able to regulate traffic flow because
of variable charges. It will be another tax. Therefore, we are
not terribly keen to see that element of the lorry road user charge
ever see the light of day.
Q244 Clive Efford: That is with specific
reference to the UK charging scheme?
Mr King: That is specific reference
to the UK because the UK's charging proposal is very much ahead
of everybody else's in Europe.
Q245 Clive Efford: So is your concern
then that because a greater proportion of your members' business
will take place in the UK they will have to meet these additional
charges on a more regular basis than anyone coming from abroad?
The opportunity to cross-subsidise your business through your
business operation is greater for someone operating from abroad
than it is for someone in the UK?
Mr King: Well, someone operating
from abroad will pay the same charge when they come into the UK.
They will pay the charge. That is the idea. If they buy fuel in
the UK they will get a rebate on that fuel; if they do not then
they will just pay the charge. We support that because at long
last there might be a system where the Continental operator will
pay the going rate for using the infrastructure and the UK haulier
will pay the same fuel costs as that Continental operator plus
the lorry charge.
Q246 Clive Efford: I am still not clear.
If you are saying that it is going to be a level playing field
and that does not matter, why is that a problem for you?
Mr King: Well, it is not a problem.
That part of it we do not have a problem with. It is a basic,
straightforward tax-neutral, revenue-neutral switch of taxation
from fuel duty to a lorry charge. We welcome that and that levels
the playing field. What we do not want to see are all the additional
incremental costs that a charging regime, according to the Government's
procurement programme, will be allowed to charge.
Q247 Chairman: Mr King, if there was
a straightforward set of controls on the driving of lorries right
the way across the European Union, which is 25 countries, would
your members be delighted because that would mean automatically
a number of extra taxes, a harmonisation of the right to enter
and leave various towns? You might get agreement only on the basis
of various countries putting into place direct charges. Are you
really seriously saying that you would prefer, because of differences
between Member States, to have a set of rigid rules applied from
the centre which would apply to every vehicle driven within the
25 countries?
Mr King: We would have no problem
with a set directive of charging, electronic charging, which set
out the rights of Member States to make a charge for the use of
that vehicle on their roads. That would be eminently understandable.
You would know in Germany it might be 3 pence a kilometre, in
France it might be 4 pence. You would know what that was. Where
we have a problem is that the "Eurovignette" also says
that you can have a lot of other additional charges at various
times of the day on certain routes of environmental sensitivity.
There could be area or zonal adjustments for the level of the
charge. How would you ever know when you are quoting or travelling
Europe what actually your charge was going to be if you had all
these derogations and multiplicity of charging bands which would
vary throughout the whole of Europe?
Q248 Chairman: Do you ever see your kind
of nirvana existing where there are only such basic charges that
none of those attitudes throughout the 25 states come into play,
where you remove the rights of individual cities, individual countries
to apply things which they believed to be necessary to protect
the environment and their own areas?
Mr King: Well, we certainly believe
that Europe's strategic road network should be subject to a common
charging regime which could vary from state to state depending
upon the charge. Certainly the charge is going to be greater in
the UK than anywhere else in Europe because of the magnitude of
the fuel rebate balancing that the Government will have to do.
But everyone will pay it, that is the main thing, and you will
know what you are paying. Where we part company is if Member States
are given permission to put all kinds of variable rates at different
times of the day and in different zones of the country. That is
when international road transport and movement within the Community
becomes an almost impossible task to perform and to know what
it is costing you.
Chairman: Thank you very much indeed.
You have been very helpful. Ms Dee, you are going to have a look
at some of those statistics for us. Thank you.
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