Haulage Permits and Trailer Registration Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2018-02-27
Topic: Transportation
Anthony Gueterbock (Labour, Centre-left): I am grateful to the House for allowing me to speak in the gap I am interested in the way in which the Conservative Party has done a complete U-turn on this issue over 25 years. When I was building the Channel Tunnel, one of the arrangements Margaret Thatcher was pleased about was that she negotiated cabotage mainly with France because the French haulage industry was not keen to have British trucks going into France and doing cabotage there. In return for building all the trains in France, Mitterand allowed the UK to have cabotage. That was the start of the single market in transport, and here we have the same party trying to close it down today, which I find rather sad I saw Barnier and his team last year, as did the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, and he gave me the same message: industry must be prepared for a cliff edge and there will not be any cherry picking. Nothing seems to have changed. The Bill is a good start as an attempt to cherry pick but, as many noble Lords have said, what about the continental drivers who are going to come to the UK? About 80% of cross-Channel traffic is now provided by non-UK registered trucks and drivers, and I cannot see much point in setting out what we want unless we can reach agreement with the European Commission as to what happens the other way. Many noble Lords have referred to this It is worse with the issues in the Republic of Ireland, to which the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, briefly referred. I have an interesting paper on Brexit produced by the Irish Academy of Engineering, which gives many statistics, including that about 1 million trucks or unit loads cross the frontier from the Republic. Some of them are destined for Northern Ireland while others go straight across the sea. The report states that 95% of the units go to and from Great Britain and two-thirds of the traffic to and from the continent goes through what they call the "land bridge". It points out that that will involve four customs checks unless the system is changed. I cannot believe that the Irish Taoiseach, Mr Varadkar, whom I have met once and who I think is doing very well in sticking up for the Republic, will be pleased about that I understood the Minister to say in her opening remarks that there was no need for registration, whether for trucks or trailers, between the Republic and Northern Ireland. I do not know, but I hope that she will be able to clarify that in her response to the debate. As many other noble Lords have said, I do not see how we can have no checks on registration between the Republic and Northern Ireland and no checks on registration across the sea Finally, several noble Lords have put this to the Minister. If we have a system for issuing licences for trailers, trucks or drivers, how long will it take to develop and how much will it cost? She will remember that HMRC was asked a similar question last autumn: what would it cost to handle the customs on trucks? The chief executive said that it would take five years to develop an IT system, he could not say what it would cost and the work cannot start until HMRC knows what has to be done. We are going to have five years of misery on the licensing, assuming the Department of Transport can do as well as HMRC—I do not know whether it can—before something good comes out of it, if it ever does. I look forward to the Minister’s response.