Haulage chiefs find themselves on shrinking shortlist of ‘leak culprits’
‘We knew who had leaked that stuff to ITV as soon as we saw it. It was entirely in keeping with the RHA and their agenda’
Sometimes, when sensitive details of a government meeting are leaked to the media, it can take months and a full-scale inquiry to identify the mole.
No such inquiry has been launched into the leak that prompted the fuel crisis last Thursday, because the shortlist of suspects, according to Whitehall insiders, has only ever consisted of one name.
The Road Haulage Association, which attended a Zoom call hosted by the Cabinet Office to discuss driver shortages, has been accused of prompting the weekend’s panicbuying in order to further its own political agenda. The RHA has been campaigning for months for cheap foreign labour to be allowed back into the country to make up a shortfall of lorry drivers, which it has “massively exaggerated”, sources say.
One senior Government source said the RHA “owes an apology to the British people” for the weekend chaos.
But the RHA has hit back by denying leaking, and suggesting the Government is trying to “divert attention away” from its own handling of driver shortages.
Whatever the truth of the matter, the row has exposed bitter divisions between the Government and one of the bodies with which it needs to be working to solve the driver crisis that is causing not only fuel shortages but also empty shelves in the shops.
At the heart of the row are three of the most senior figures in the RHA, who opposed Brexit and are said to be locked in an ideological battle with the Government over the future of the labour market.
The man who was on the Zoom call for the crucial meeting earlier this month is Duncan Buchanan, the RHA’S policy director. He answers to Richard Burnett, chief executive of the RHA, while the public face of the industry body is Rod Mckenzie, managing director of policy and public affairs, who previously worked for the BBC.
They have denied being the source of a highly partial leak of comments made in the meeting by a BP executive, who said fuel stocks on forecourts were lower than normal. “Of course they are denying it, but we know it was them,” said one senior government source. “There have been occasions in the past when they have leaked stuff when ministers are on their way to brief the House of Commons about it. In the past they have got away with it because no one has called them out for it.”
The RHA has denied any involvement in leaking information to the media. Crucially, the RHA represents haulage operators, rather than drivers, and has been accused by ministers of wanting to import cheap labour rather than trying to attract more drivers by paying them better wages, which would come at a cost to its members.
It has repeatedly claimed there is a shortage of 100,000 drivers in the country, though the Government insists the true figure is closer to 30,000 and that when it comes to tanker drivers the shortfall is as few as 150-300 drivers.
One source said: “There has been a shortage of drivers for months, largely because of Covid, which has meant new drivers can’t take tests, and others are ill or self-isolating, so this is nothing new at all. But because their agenda is to import foreign workers, they have gone out to ramp this up with massive consequences.
“Duncan Buchanan spoke at the meeting and made exactly the same points that were briefed out to the media and caused all this. Their failure to tackle this as an organisation has been monumental but their solution every time is to hire people from Eastern Europe.”
The sources claim the leak has been traced back to an industry taskforce meeting held on Sep 16, in which Cabinet Office officials discussed the driver shortage with those at the sharp end. Among those attending were Tesco, Mcdonald’s, Unilever, BP, Amazon, Kingfisher and haulage firm Eddie Stobart. As well as the RHA’S Mr Buchanan, another trade body, Logistics UK, was also present.
Hanna Hofer, head of BP’S retail business, told the meeting that the company had “two thirds of normal forecourt stock levels”. She also said, according to others present in the meeting, that only five out of BP’S 1,200 forecourts were closed on any given day.
Last Thursday night, ITV News carried an exclusive report, which referred to the first part of Ms Hofer’s comment, but not the second. By the next day, drivers were queueing at the pumps and running them dry through the weekend. By yesterday, BP said 30 per cent of its forecourts had run out of some types of fuel.
“We knew who had leaked that stuff to ITV as soon as we saw it,” said a government source. “It was entirely in keeping with the RHA and their agenda.”
In a letter to Boris Johnson in June, Mr Burnett said “the uncertainty of Brexit and future rights to live and work in the UK forced many drivers” to return to their country of origin. He requested temporary work visas for Eu-based lorry drivers, though he also advocated recruiting and training homegrown drivers.
Mr Mckenzie, who has also blamed post-brexit immigration restrictions for the crisis and has been a familiar face on TV in recent days, was a former BBC executive before joining the RHA.
Mr Buchanan has denied on Twitter that he was behind the leak, and claimed it could not have been Mr Mckenzie because he phoned him up to ask if it was true after seeing it on the news. An RHA spokesman said: “The RHA categorically denies accusations of creating fuel supply panic and believes this disgraceful attack on a member of its staff is an attempt to divert attention away from their recent handling of the driver shortage crisis.”
Brian Madderson, chairman of the Petrol Retailers Association, said it was the leak that sparked the “frenzied buying” adding: “Whoever leaked it to a main broadcaster must have known the chaos that would ensue”