Northern Ireland enforcement on HGV levy delayed again

Enforcement of the HGV Road User Levy in Northern Ireland looks set to be delayed for months after Northern Ireland’s Environment Committee put off a crucial vote on the subordinate legislation required to enact it.

In a meeting on 3 July, members of the committee agreed to question civil servants from the Department of the Environment (DoE) at their next meeting in September before taking any vote about the proposed legislation to allow enforcement of the levy – putting any progress on hold.

Willie Oliver, MD of Coleraine-based Oliver Transport Services and a member of the Road Haulage Association’s regional council for Scotland and Northern Ireland, said it could be a number of months before enforcement of the levy began.

He added that even in the event of a vote in favour of the legislation by the committee in September, an objection could be launched thereafter by Sinn Fein that would force a full debate in the Northern Ireland Assembly.

“Sinn Fein, because of its all-Ireland agenda, doesn’t see why this should be enforced against Irish operators,” he said. “A member of Sinn Fein is going to do their best to block this and it will end up in a full-blown debate.”

Agreeing that the continuing lack of enforcement in Northern Ireland was an embarrassment for the Department for Transport (DfT), given that the HGV Road User Levy became payable by law throughout the whole of the UK on 1 April, Oliver said the RHA might consider asking it to make HMRC, rather than the DoE, the enforcing body in Northern Ireland to speed up the introduction of enforcement.   

The DfT told CM that in the first three months of the HGV levy, 6,559 Ireland-registered vehicles had levies purchased for them.

The total number of levies purchased for Ireland-registered vehicles was 29,879, with 862 of these being annual levies.

• This story originally appeared in Commercial Motor 17 July. Make sure you pick up your copy of Commercial Motor at a newsagent or MSA for all the news and the best used truck and trailer deals. Or why not subscribe?