Britain’s Road Haulage Association (RHA)  has congratulated Boris Johnson on his “emphatic general election win” for the Conservatives and is calling on him to work with the freight and logistics trade on a number of key issues of vital importance to member companies.

After a long and bitter general election, Johnson surprised many with the Conservatives securing a heavy majority in the House of Commons last night (12 December), with eyes now turning to his efforts to enact Brexit by 31 January. Under the existing withdrawal agreement (now certain to be ratified by UK lawmakers), the UK – after 31 January – will be in a ‘transition’ phase having formally left the trade bloc, while effectively staying temporarily inside the EU’s single market until December 31st, 2020. However, that date is when the UK must leave the transition arrangements (unless an extension agreed) and UK-EU trade either takes place under the terms of a new negotiated UK-EU trade deal, or moves to a so-called ‘no-deal’ and trading on WTO terms (implying new tariffs and more customs checks).

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In a letter to the Prime Minister, RHA chief executive Richard Burnett said:  “Over the past three years we have highlighted the risks and impacts of whatever Brexit approach is taken,” said RHA chief executive, Richard Burnett.

“Enough time to implement and transition to any new arrangements for customs, lorry access regulations and labour is essential to maintain the UK’s supply chains.”

Burnett also called on the new government to help transition to cleaner lorries. “It is imperative to ensure investment in vehicles and infrastructure is supported – with standards to drive change being introduced in line with vehicle and infrastructure life-cycles,” he added.

“A growing skills shortage in our sector threatens the future of our critical industry. While we welcome measures taken by the previous government, namely the Department for Transport for supporting our Road to Logistics initiative, much more needs to be done.

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“We call on government to reform the Apprenticeship Levy. The current system is not working for our industry and uptake amongst our members is minimal. As things stand, our industry has paid in over GBP300m (US$ 402m) while only being able to draw down approximately GBP20m.

“There are other challenges too as we look to address a widespread shortage of safe and secure parking facilities for our vehicles and drivers, higher fuel prices than our EU competitors and poorly maintained roads across the UK.”