‘ Lottery’ on permits is a risk to jobs, says haulier

THE CHIEF executive of a Hull haulage firm warned yesterday that the Government’s failure to plan for Brexit could lead to redundancies.

Peter Brown, of Neill and Brown, said hauliers still did not know which way to turn, despite there being less than three months to go before the end of the transition period.

Mr Brown said he will face a permit lottery in a few weeks’ time when he may or may not get permits for his 25 European trucks which travel to the Continent daily.

Under a previous lottery he was able to get just five – and says some bigger companies got none.

However European hauliers would not need permits to come into the UK as it stands, he said.

He said that would leave British hauliers “massively disadvantaged” and could lead to redundancies.

And he said it was unfair of the Government to try to blame hauliers when they were not telling them what the arrangements were going to be.

He said he had already had trucks sitting for up to 15 hours at Dover during trials of new border controls.

And although the Government appeared to think European hauliers would continue to travel to the UK with food supplies, it wasn’t such a simple matter.

He said he had heard of French and Spanish wholesalers and distributors who said they would try to find easier markets where there were no prospects of delays.

Mr Brown said: “We need free access to Europe and they need free access to us. It can’t be right they have free access and we don’t.”