02:43
Haualage firms: We don’t want cabotage to sabotage our industry
Britain’s haulage industry has heavily criticised the government’s plan to relax cabotage rules for overseas drivers.
Rod McKenzie, managing director of Policy and Public Affairs at the Road Haulage Association, has told the Today Programme that his members are appalled by the plan to allow foreign drivers make unlimited deliveries within the UK during a fortnight.
“Ridiculous, pathetic, gobsmacked” were some of their more broadcast-able comments, McKenzie says (with an eye on the early morning audience):
The government has been talking about a high-wage, high-skill economy, and not pulling the lever marked ‘uncontrolled immigration’, and to them [RHA members], this is exactly what it looks like.
The plan would allow overseas haulage firms to undercut UK hauliers, McKenzie fears, at a time when they face ‘acute driver shortages’, rising costs and staff wages, as well as poor roadside facilities.
This is about taking work from British operators and drivers and giving to Europeans who don’t pay tax here and pay peanuts to their drivers.
Q: But this is trying to address those driver shortages, and it’s temporary – isn’t it a neat solution to the supply chain crisis?
McKenzie replies that the government wants to save Christmas, and to be seen to be saving Christmas. Extra drivers will clearly help with Christmas deliveries.
So from a “simple populist point of view”, you can see what the government is doing… but it doesn’t help hard-working UK hauliers, McKenzie says.
We don’t want cabotage to sabotage our industry.
The government, though, says the plan will bolster the UK’s supply chain. Under the proposals released last night:
- thousands more HGV deliveries could be made each month thanks to temporary changes to ‘cabotage’ to help ensure resilience of country’s supply chains
- consultation launching today would allow foreign transport operators to make unlimited journeys for 2 weeks before returning home
02:40
Introduction: FTSE 100 heads for 20-month high
Good morning, and welcome to our rolling coverage of the world economy, the financial markets, the eurozone and business.
Britain’s stock market is heading for a pandemic high today, as investors shrug off worries that the global energy crunch will slow the recovery.
The FTSE 100, which has lagged other major markets since the pandemic, is on track to open at its highest level since the crash of February 2020. That would take it closer to its levels before Covid-19 hit.
The Footsie has been lifted by heavyweight oil and mining stocks in recent sessions, as the prices of oil, gas, and a range of other commodities have surged to multiyear highs.
Surging energy prices and supply chain tensions are eating into corporate earnings, and already forcing some factories around the world to suspend production. But the mood today seems brighter.
Michael Hewson of CMC Markets explains:
There still seems to be an element of complacency amongst investors that rising energy prices won’t prompt a wave of demand destruction, especially if supply chain snarl-ups also feed into higher prices, which consumers then can’t absorb.
Yesterday’s US PPI prices [factory gate prices] for September still came in at a record high, but there was evidence that the trend was starting to slow, however in recent months we have seen evidence that US retail sales, has been slowing, while consumer confidence has also fallen sharply from the peaks we saw at the start of, and during Q2.
With that in mind today’s US retail sales numbers for September and University of Michigan confidence numbers could be key indicators as to whether we’ve seen a trough after the Delta related slowdowns seen during Q3.
Meanwhile, UK businesses are digesting two more government u-turns on overseas workers yesterday. Faced with the prospect of a mass pig cull, it gave the go-ahead for 800 foreign butchers to come and work in Britain on seasonal visas.
And with Britain’s supply chains badly stretched, foreign lorry drivers could soon be allowed to make more deliveries in the UK.
Ministers have launched a consultation on extending cabotage rights, allowing foreign HGV drivers to make unlimited journeys for two weeks within the UK before returning home. Under the current rules drivers can only make two trips within seven days.
If approved after the one-week consultation, the proposals would come into force before the end of the year and last for six months. Will that be in time to address pre-Christmas shortages?…
The agenda
- 7am BST: EU new car sales in September
- 9.30am BST: Monthly UK insolvency statistics
- 10am BST: EU trade data for August
- 1.30pm BST: US retail sales for September
- 3pm BST: University of Michigan survey of US consumer confidence
Updated