Following representations from Highlands and Islands MSP, Jamie McGrigor, on the position of small-scale haulage businesses, Transport Minister Keith Brown has agreed to make concession on ferry fare discount for smaller hauliers.
Mr Brown has told Highlands & Islands Conservative MSP Jamie McGrigor that the Scottish Government will look again at a hauliers’ ferry discount scheme ‘to ensure we can offer discounts to small hauliers too.’
Jamie McGrigor’s representations to the Minister came after he was approached by numerous small hauliers on the West Coast of Scotland who were extremely alarmed that, following this Spring’s planned ending of the Road Equivalent Tariff scheme (RET) for commercial vehicles, the Scottish Government’s replacement scheme would only offer a 25% discount to the operators of large commercial vehicles, not to small operators.
In a letter to Jamie McGrigor the Minister states that, in response to feedback from hauliers, the Government plans to ‘fine-tune’ its new discount scheme and ‘will look again at how the discount applies to ensure that we can offer discounts to small hauliers too.’
The new scheme will be introduced in Spring this year on routes on which RET currently applies. The Minister also confirms that the government will seek to extend the current definition of a commercial vehicle from 5 metres to 6 metres in time for the next Clyde & Hebrides ferry tender.
Speaking today Jamie McGrigor says: ‘ I am prepared to give a cautious welcome to the Transport Minister’s concession on this issue of very real concern to small hauliers in my region of the Highlands & Islands.
‘I have received numerous representations from small hauliers operating on routes in the inner and outer Hebrides and they were rightly furious that the new discount scheme was only due to apply to larger operators. This was patently unfair and would have placed them at a severe and unacceptable competitive disadvantage and could have squeezed many of them out of business and led to less competition for island communities and the consumers, farmers and crofters dependent on these smaller companies.
‘I urge the Minister and his officials to engage with small hauliers and ensure that they are included in what needs to be a comprehensive discount scheme. I will continue to press him in Parliament to ensure this happens.’
Full marks to Jamie McGrigor (and you can but wonder at the ability of any government, and its advisors, to fail to spot the impacts when they’re designing a new policy with clear economic implications).
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