Fleets highlight policies industry requires ahead of general election (video)

With a general election expected in 2024, the industry has highlighted some of its priorities for the next Government it would like to see in a fleet manifesto.

Greater help with the decarbonisation of vans and trucks, as well as proposals around vehicle taxation, were among the key subjects that fleets want politicians to grapple with on the latest Fleet News at 10 webinar.    

Paul Hollick, chair of trade body the Association of Fleet Professionals (AFP), told Fleet News at 10: “Electrifying or decarbonising the van and heavy goods sector is probably the biggest priority and the most challenging thing for the next five to 10 years.

“Anything that Government can do around improving the conditions for us to deploy electric vans, in particular, would be appreciated.”

The latest polling from Ipsos (December 2023) has Labour on 41%, down five percentage points from November, the Conservatives at 24% (a one percentage decline month-on-month), Liberal Democrats with 13% (an increase of one percentage point) and the Green Party at 9% (a three-percentage point increase). Others remained unchanged at 10%.

Hollick says that he would also like to see greater incentives for the adoption of electric vehicles (EVs) in the retail sector and, for people that don’t have access to a driveway, the price of charging their EV to be more equitable.

He explained: “I think it’s a real issue for our society that electric vehicles are really the domain, from a cost-effective perspective, of those people with driveways that can use home charging and their domestic energy supply.”

Hollick highlighted the disparity between those charging at home with electricity which does not attract VAT at 20% and those EV drivers forced to use the public network where VAT applies.  

He also called for reform of clean air zones (CAZs) so that they are better aligned for businesses running national fleets.

Road pricing and fuel duty

Successive governments have avoided the thorny issue of road tax and, with the greater adoption of EVs, a continuing decline in fuel duty revenues.

The EV transition is set to drive a £10 billion a year revenue shortfall by the early 2030s.

In the summer, the think tank the Resolution Foundation recommended a new ‘road duty’ for EVs – levied at around 6p per mile (plus VAT) – to offset the decline in fuel duty.

Duncan Webb, fleet director at the AA, believes some sort of roadmap is needed from the next Government to allow fleets time to plan.

"I think we need to start to get the groundwork about how that's exactly going to look so fleets can prepare long-term,” he told Fleet News at 10.

With the AA attending more than 450,000 pothole-related breakdowns this year, Webb would also like to see even greater resources being allocated to improve road surfaces.

In November, the Government announced its ‘biggest ever’ road resurfacing programme to improve local roads plagued by potholes.

The Department for Transport (DfT) allocated £8.3 billion of funds, which it said had been redirected from the cancelled phase 2 part of HS2, enough to resurface more than 5,000 miles of road across the country over the next 11 years.

However, the Asphalt Industry Alliance (AIA) had previously reported that, while half (51%) of local roads were in good structural condition, the remainder - more than 100,000 miles - could continue to deteriorate to the point of needing to be rebuilt within the next 15 years, without appropriate maintenance measures.

“Anything that we can do for potholes would be great in any manifesto,” said Webb.

Appearing alongside Webb and Hollick, Chris Connors, head of fleet and travel for the UK and Ireland at ISS, also would like to see policies around helping fleets decarbonise and greater equity with EV charging costs.

In addition, he called for policies which could help attract new talent to the industry. “I would like to see some focus on getting people into the industry," he said.

“I think there's a real skill shortage out there in a lot of areas, so if we can support people make that transition into the industry, that would be good.”

Watch the full fleet manifesto debate on Fleet News at 10