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We provide a vital service
Page 28
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THE GOVERNMENT has promised to look after the interests of the haulage industry ever since the fuel protests of 2000. But now, five years later, we find that it has been lying to us.
OK, so perhaps this isn't the surprise that it might have been given the antics of Blair and his cronies, but nonetheless the government's recent actions came as a shock. It pulled out of the Lorry Road User Charge with no notice and no suggestion of what it might replace it with, which to me seems a grave dereliction of duty.
In the meantime, of course, the price of fuel goes up and up. the number of cut-rate foreign hauliers taking our work continues to increase (you look at the motorways in Kent and Surrey in particular and you're hard pressed to find one with GB plates) and the number of hardworking UK hauliers going to the wall climbs steadily higher.
If we were one of the government's favourite industries like coal mining or steelmaking then, of course, we'd have had government hand-outs long ago, but because we are not perceived as its political friend we're tossed on the scrapheap to rot. Is it too much to ask that the government recognises what a vital service we provide and reward us for that? Actually, perhaps that question is better left unanswered.