When I gave my inaugural speech at the CPT Annual Dinner, one commentator was surprised that I hadn’t mentioned anything about Brexit. True, it can’t be ignored.
Like many of you, watching from afar, it’s difficult to know what to make of the current negotiations.
Is all the grandstanding just that and behind the scenes there is a clear path to an agreement or should there be genuine concern that there seem to be so many unanswered questions as we hurtle headlong towards March 2019?
In fact not very much will happen in March 2019 itself, it’s really just a further countdown step marking the beginning of the 18-month transition period.
And indeed so much of Brexit isn’t necessarily specific to our industry, it’s just the overall uncertainty and general negative mood music it creates.
Clearly as an industry that has historically relied, in some areas, on overseas staff to fill jobs, the situation on free movement (or perceived lack of free movement) is a key wider issue that affects us greatly.
Incidentally a little mentioned issue is the potential return to ‘boom and bust’ economics as a result of this. Readers will remember the ‘80s and ‘90s where the brakes were put on a growing economy to control inflation by interest rate rises. The availability of a labour pool from Europe has helped to lessen the pressure on wages that caused this and then stymied growth.
It is true that at the moment in some locations there is retrenchment in the industry so availability of labour is less of a problem, but overall my experience is that generally we are more likely to be vulnerable to staff shortage than have a surplus, particularly in the more prosperous locations and this often acts as a major constraint to growth.
This is an issue for us and our customers. If the wider economy suffers labour shortages and we have to increase salaries to continue to attract staff, with drivers typically being around 40% of overall costs it would be difficult to absorb this and not pass it on in the form of higher fares or increased tender prices.
For all these reasons it would seem essential to get the message across that our current sources of labour from the EU should not be restricted.
With March 2019 looming coach operators will soon finish the 2018 season with a degree of trepidation and uncertainty. Will this be the last year that they do not need to allow for long delays at the border? Will ‘Operation Stack’ be a daily occurrence on the M20? And how do companies plan their overseas tour programmes? Will there be extra tariffs to consider, will additional time need to be taken into account for anticipated border checks? Will UK operators be penalised? Or will everything carry on as normal?
But getting answers isn’t easy. Our trade organisation CPT is trying to get clarity on the regulatory framework.
Think of your day-to-day operations and how, as a responsible operator, your compliance regimes have to take account of employment law, environment law, health and safety and specialist transport regulations affecting the way we compete for tenders, how much time we allow our drivers to spend time on duty and that so much of that is either directly or indirectly influenced by EU law.
Will that still be the case as a quid pro quo for being affiliated to the EU in some shape or form in a soft Brexit, or will we go our own way leaving the European model and if so how long will that take to work its way through?
To an extent a view might be ‘this is all so big’ that it’s hopeless to even try to influence the outcome.
As an industry we’re just small fry compared to the other more weighty issues that need to be tackled.
But engagement is paramount. It’s because we are a small cog in a very large wheel that we have to make sure that we are not forgotten when big decisions are being made.
Make a noise and ensure you have your key ‘Brexit ask’ up your sleeve when engaging with stakeholders.
At the very least it means you can say ‘I told you so’ when the changes come. But more positive than that, it might just mean you can help to shape better outcomes.
