=================================================================================== .................................................................................... ON THE RECORD JOHN REID INTERVIEW RECORDED FROM TRANSMISSION: BBC ONE DATE: 21.3.99
.................................................................................... JOHN HUMPHRYS: Let's deal with the risk first of all. Do you accept that there is a real risk here than an awful lot of jobs are going to be lost perhaps to the French, perhaps to Luxembourg wherever it may be that they go to reregister. Fifty thousand jobs potentially. You must be worried about that. JOHN REID: Well if there were a risk over fifty thousand jobs obviously we're worried but the figures which have been quoted from the survey unfortunately no-one will release the methodology of the statistics of the figures and that's one of the sort of things we could look at in the forum because if I could just reply on the budget and what our view of this is as far as the budget's concerned we did freeze, I notice that Steve mentioned and quite properly that we were charging a high vehicle excise duty on those lorries which damage our roads far more than..... HUMPHRYS: These are the forty tonners on five..... REID These are the forty tonners on five axles...... HUMPHRYS: Which is what everybody is using on the continent now...... REID: Well just let me finish that because what we have said to people in Britain is that if they get six axles we're prepared to allow them a forty one tonne lorry so that we've got the same capacity and the actual VED on that is lower than the existing thirty-eight tonne. We want to encourage it so ninety-eight per cent of the lorry categories we have frozen in the budget and in addition we've given a real alternative to the forty tonner. However can I also say we cut corporation tax, long term capital gains tax, we cut national insurance contributions, we cut income tax...... HUMPHRYS: That applies to everybody not just ..... REID: That applies to... yes but it applies to all our hauliers John and if you take the total cost together of operating a fifty truck fleet in the United Kingdom and compare it with France and Belgium and the Netherlands, to the best of our knowledge and figures it costs four hundred thousand pounds more in France, six hundred thousand pounds more in Holland and almost eight hundred thousand more in the Netherlands...sorry in Belgium. If those figures are disputed we are saying we can go forward either through dialogue or through disruption and I'm offering Steve Norris and the Freight Transport Association and both sides of that industry, the unions themselves, the opportunity to sit down with us, to build a bridge for the future of the haulage industry, to bring in the Treasury and the DTI and to see exactly what the position is so that in future years everything will be on the agenda, everything can be looked at...... HUMPHRYS: Okay, so in other words when you have this meeting to which Steve Norris had made clear he's pretty happy to go, you are prepared to reconsider and the Treasury will reconsider it's policy on, for instance, on the extra tax on diesel fuel which is huge at the moment, the cost of a gallon of diesel in Britain compared with France is astronomical. As you know they fill up in France, they come over here, they use the stuff here they go back there they fill it up again. REID: John can I just say on that so do British hauliers. HUMPHRYS: Indeed. That's precisely what I'm saying. That's exactly the point so you lose the excise duty so the question is... REID: Let's deal with how much we might lose on that. The excise duty lost based on the number of lorries coming into this country and the fuel tank capacity of them is somewhere between a minimum of thirty million pounds and an absolute maximum of two hundred and forty million. HUMPHRYS: Two hundred and forty million pounds is a lot of money..... HUMPHRYS: Absolutely and it is nearer the lower end however the cost in damage to our roads from forty tonners and five axles is hundreds of millions of pounds so the public are entitled to expect that we support a thriving profitable haulage industry in a very competitive market and I accept that but also that we should balance that up with the difficulties of congestion pollution and road damage because if we don't do that then the hauliers are given a blank cheque but the rest of the country has to pay for it. HUMPHRYS: We'll come back to that in a second but are you saying that this forum, and there wouldn't be a lot of point of having it if it didn't do this would there, will be able to look at issues like the tax on diesel, like vehicle excise duty and perhaps promise that in future, can't do anything about the last budget, Gordon Brown's made that perfectly clear, promised that in future the increases may be less than they have been in the past. REID: I can go even further than that: The Treasury at present is reviewing the whole VED including VED on lorries..... HUMPHRYS: And diesel tax.....? REID: And diesel. The whole of VED is being looked at at the present. What we want to do is to put that in a broader context with both parts of the industry that is the employees and the employers with the DTI, the Treasury and myself as Transport Minister so that instead of going through the disruption that has been threatened for tomorrow and I do hope it doesn't go ahead, I genuinely hope it doesn't go ahead because I think the last thing that the long suffering public need, already suffering from congestion, pollution, damage to the roads and so on is road hauliers coming in and blocking up and inconveniencing and disrupting millions of people who are already paying their taxes who have no quarrel with the hauliers but tomorrow are going to be penalised when there is an alternative to sitting down and talking about this when everything will be on the agenda and we can see and can resolve it for the future. HUMPHRYS: And some of those increases therefore may be reversed? That is possible? REID: No John. The last budget is not going to be ...... HUMPHRYS: No but in future you're saying..... REID: In future we want to look at it. VED has already been reviewed by the Treasury. Let's look at all of these aspects but let's recognise that we have to get a balance here. I've been working with the Trade Transport Association and the Road Haulage Association and I have to say very constructively to try and get a decent profitable and competitive distribution system in this country, indeed recently I was at the Freight Transport Association Conference, we lunched a document there looking at best practice, Steve and the Road Haulage Association are bringing in new technology to make sure that we've not got empty lorries running in the roads when we don't need them. Let's build on that and if the Road Hauliers are saying 'Look this is absolutely intolerable we can show you figures to prove it let's put them on the table. Let's discuss that over the next year'. And at the end of that if we haven't managed to reach some sort of consensus in the future then of course they'll be entitled to say 'well look we tried and failed'. However what they to accept is that the public is concerned about congestion, pollution, damage to our roads and noises and as a government we have to get that balanced. Now we offered dialogue - if they chose disruption and inconvenience and dislocation and penalise the public I don't think the public will be very accepting of the point of view. HUMPHRYS: But your problem is this isn't it, that if you are quite clear that the reason for these taxes, the higher diesel tax and so on, is to stop those particular lorries operating on the roads of Britain, you cannot offer them concessions can you because you are quite determined that will not happen, for all the reasons that you have given me: pollution and damage to the roads..to the surface of the roads and so on. REID: There's two different things. First, of all there's the Vehicle Excise Duty. There's a review of that going on already and I want to incorporate that inside, it's been carried out in the Treasury. The second thing is on the diesel tax. Now, what hasn't been mentioned, apart from all the cuts and the frozen VED that I mentioned earlier on, what hasn't been mentioned in the budget is the alternative fuels, the differential on low sulphur diesel for instance has been maintained and increased. There was a twenty-nine per cent cut on the compressed natural gas. Now that is something we want to develop safely.. HUMPHRYS: ...costs the small haulier a great deal of money wouldn't it, to convert their lorries to that sort of thing and the point that Steve Norris is making is that at the moment an awful lot of them are literally close to bankruptcy, they may go bust. REID: If you would let me finish on that one because we are developing that. During the week there was a complete lie actually paraded. I'm not suggesting that Steve or the road hauliers did it - about Safeway. Safeway, it was rumoured, were going abroad, this is the atmosphere we're in now, where we get these exaggerated claims, they have no intention of doing it... HUMPHRYS: What about Eddie Stobart ..... REID: I'll come to Eddie in a second. Safeway indeed are working with us in developing compressed national gas which not only has benefits from the point of view of the environment but also has a much quieter engine which allows them to do deliveries during the night in a way that they weren't previously allowed to do by local authorities. As regards Eddie Stobart , Eddie Stobart is a great British success story, none of us want to lose Eddie Stobart , we've got used to his lorries on the road and I hope.. HUMPHRYS: ..but you will if he carries out his threat and goes abroad. REID: Eddie has eight hundred lorries, the two hundred he's registering abroad, let's be quite straight about this, are already operating abroad. They are left-hand drive lorries I think probably, they're probably paying more in insurance because they're registered here. It is a two-way street. Just as Eddie is going with a quarter of his trucks abroad, we are getting companies that are coming here, French companies and European companies who are registering here because they are working here. HUMPHRYS: So you think they are exaggerating their concerns, their problems. REID: I think there is over capacity in the industry. I think that the road hauliers face a very difficult situation, there's no question about that, that is why we've had the cuts we've had in insurance and taxation, that is why we've frozen for two years running, most of the lorry taxes but if there are continuing problems with it, which I am concerned about, then I am prepared to bring all sides together in an attempt, through dialogue, to solve this and ensure a good future for the road hauliers. HUMPHRYS: And the Treasury will listen and might even give them a rebate on fuel, which is one of the things they are after? REID: Well you know none of us can speak for the Treasury ultimately, but we can say that they are..have given every indication that they are willing to enter into this dialogue and if they are willing to do that, I think that is a far better way of solving it than dislocating, disrupting and inconveniencing the people of this country, who remember are paying their taxes as well. HUMPHRYS: John Reid, thank you very much indeed. REID: Thank you John. 4 5 FoLdEd