Report highlights freight haulage inequity
Date: 03 December 2007
A new report into the UK freight haulage industry by Heriot-Watt University has concluded that "the imposition of higher taxes on British road freight operations places them at a competitive disadvantage within an open EU market for road haulage services".
It found that, last year, domestic and foreign-registered logistics truck activity imposed external costs of around £7.3 billion.
However, while British haulage truck firms internalised 67 per cent of these costs through duties and taxes paid by road freight operators, hardly any of these costs were borne by foreign-registered firms.
This is because almost all the fuel they consume is bought before they enter the country and they incur "virtually no direct infrastructure charges in the UK".
British freight haulage firms recently had to deal with a 2p per litre rise in fuel duty, which massively impacts their operations.
Another conclusion of the report is that the freight haulage industry is bearing more than its fair share of responsibility for pollution.
"The 'polluter pays' principle is not applied uniformly across the UK economy," the report stated. "If it is being more rigorously applied in the road freight sector than elsewhere, this will cause market distortions and unfairness in the implementation of environmental policy."
The London low emission zone, which applies to HGVs in the capital, will be phased in from next year.
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