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ON THE RECORD
STEVEN NORRIS INTERVIEW
RECORDED FROM TRANSMISSION: BBC-1 DATE: 21.3.99
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JOHN HUMPHRYS: But first - lorries. There will be
more of them than usual in London tomorrow because of a demonstration by drivers
who are angry about the big increases in fuel tax and road fund licenses in the last
Budget. Some operators say it's so expensive now to operate lorries in this country
that they're going to register them on the continent. They say it could cost us
50,000 jobs over the next few years. I'll be talking to the Transport Minister,
John Reid, in a moment. But first, Steve Norris, the Director General of the Road
Haulage Association and of course a former Transport Minister with a rather sore
throat this morning I understand - we'll be kind on you.
It's irresponsible this isn't it, turning
your lorries out in London to make life miserable for all of us, behaving like the
French?
STEVE NORRIS: Well, one of the reasons why
it's not actually sort of an official protest from our association or indeed any
other is precisely because we've always said, you know don't do anything to inconvenience
the public.
HUMPHRYS: So you're asking them not to do
it, you want them not to do it?
NORRIS: I can't do that John, and the reason
is very straightforward, because I utterly sympathise with people who are so desperate
now, these people, they know their next step is bankruptcy, and when you're that
close to that kind of disaster, I've had some of them say to me when I've put that
point to them they say: Steve there's no point, we're almost beyond caring whether
the public react badly or well, because nothing seems to happen anyway, we've written
to our MPs, we've made the point. You know you, that is me and my other colleagues
in the industry's associations we've been banging away for ever. This didn't all
happen on Budget Day. This has been going on for a couple of years now. It's just
that on Budget Day instead of there being any idea that we'd actually even been listened
to we were kicked in the teeth, and that's why these people are doing what they're
doing.
So I can't condemn it, I know how
they feel, I know they think, they see the French drivers do it to them on occasions,
so why don't we do the same. All I can say is that for some of them who really are
about to go on the dole if they don't get a change, they just think it's the last
breath.
HUMPHRYS: But that's overdoing it terribly
isn't it. I mean the fact is that ninety-eight per cent of the lorries on this
road if we're to believe the Transport Minister have not had these big increases
in vehicle excise duty last time for instance, ninety-eight per cent haven't.
NORRIS: What's that old business about lies
and damn lies? You know that was an extraordinary example of just why we're angry.
Ninety-eight per cent of lorry VED is frozen - fact - trouble, the two per cent
is the only two per cent that matters, because it was the two per cent that referred
to the forty-tonne five axle lorry which is absolutely standard in Europe, and to
give you some idea in France you can tax that for four-hundred and fifty-six pounds,
Belgium about the same, a little bit less. I mean two-hundred and odd in Portugal.
This country - five thousand-seven-hundred and fifty pounds, it's nearly a dozen
times as much, and when the French lorry arrives here with a tank of diesel that
costs half what it costs this side of the Channel and with road tax paid that's literally
a twelfth of what you pay this side of the Channel, well what do you think happens?
When the business goes from a British lorry firm it doesn't go to railways. You
know the supermarket doesn't get a lorry failing to turn up. All that happens is
that a British driver and a British truck get replaced by a continental driver and
a continental truck.
HUMPHRYS: Well, we're going to have a forum.
The government has said, John Reid has said, now there's going to be a forum where
you can all get together with somebody from the Treasury as well. Why not say okay,
let's at least talk about it, in this group, this new group that going to be set
up to try and sort it out. Much better to jaw jaw than war war surely?
NORRIS: Always better to jaw jaw, and I'm
very happy to talk to John Reid, he's been a good friend to the industry personally.
HUMPHRYS: So what do you want from him, what
do you want, what do you expect from this forum?
NORRIS: I need from him and so do - I mean
not me but the whole of the industry needs a direct line into Her Majesty's Treasury,
because Treasury Ministers are the ones who have brought this on the Government.
I mean they have consistently refused to see any industry leaders from an industry
which is employing over a million people in this country, since the General Election.
I really think that's disgraceful.
HUMPHRYS: So what do you want from them.
If you get that meeting what do you want..
NORRIS: And typical of that was putting John
Reid up to see us. Now you know John's the kind of minister you can see any day
you want if you've got a real problem, but where is the Treasury Minister......
HUMPHRYS: Well they'll be a Treasury man
at the forum.
NORRIS: Well, you know, we'll talk, we will
never say that we won't talk and we're looking for progress and I know from government
that it isn't the Transport Department that delivers that, it's got to be the Treasury.
HUMPHRYS: And what are you asking from the
Treasury?
NORRIS: We want a little bit of understanding
of what the true impact of these increases is, because the true impact is simply
that first of all the Chancellor is losing hundreds of millions of pounds in duty
that isn't paid on diesel this side of the Channel - and jobs, fifty thousand of
them.
HUMPHRYS: Right. What do you want in a nutshell
NORRIS: In a nutshell we want the haulage
sector which is the only sector that has to compete to be offered some kind of rebate
of its own excess cost so that we're not interfering with the general idea of a fuel
escalator if that's what the Government wants to do - fine. If it needs to raise
the money, we understand that, but what can be a self-financing, self-balancing,
essential user rebate for those trucks that are facing absolutely crippling competition
from abroad.
HUMPHRYS: Alright, Steve Norris, thank you
very much.
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