Those of us who relied on a car or motorbike to get around will never forget the experience. Huge lorries blockaded the country's oil refineries. Motorways were jammed with convoys of trucks. Vital services ground to a halt. For a short period it seemed like Britain was heading back to the dark days of the 1970s, as protesters and police officers clashed and Ministers struggled to gain control of events.

This summer, the country has flirted once again with the spectre of a major fuel protest. Last month, more than 200 lorry drivers took to the streets of London to demonstrate against the rising cost of diesel. Similar scenes have been witnessed in both Scotland and Wales. Hauliers have begun flexing their muscles and have threatened the Government with wildcat action and refinery blockades.

The rising cost of oil has impacted heavily on almost every family and business in the country, but none more so than Britain's hauliers. They have been well and truly decimated in recent months. For every penny that is added to the price of diesel, more than £140m gets added to their fuel bill. As a result, costs have risen by about £4bn over the past 12 months alone.

I've received letters from several companies in my constituency and they are in genuine despair about the state of their industry. Hundreds of redundancies are expected over the next year or so, and many
firms are expected to go out of business altogether.

One of the biggest myths about the haulage industry is that it is stuffed with huge companies with large workforces and soaring profits. Nothing could be further from the truth. Most companies are small or medium-sized family businesses that have evolved over many decades.

As Peter Caroll, of TransAction 2007, said recently: "These people have built up their businesses, sometimes over generations. It breaks my heart when I meet people who have had to re-mortgage their homes and are now facing a kind of commercial slaughter on a gigantic scale."

The problem is that whereas larger companies are more able to absorb higher fuel costs and can pass on the pain of price rises to customers, small companies are more restricted in what action they can take. This has led to many of them losing thousands of pounds each and every month.

The hauliers have been asking for two main things from the Government: the scrapping of the 2p a litre increase in fuel duty – which they were finally given this week – and a fuel tax rebate of around 25p in
the pound.

The freeze on fuel duty will only help British hauliers in the short-term. In the long-term, the Government needs to be both bold and brave. One of the biggest problems the industry faces is the increase in competition from European firms.

On average, the cost of fuel in the euro-zone is 25p a litre cheaper than it is here. Times that by the hundreds of journeys the average lorry driver must make in a given year and it's little wonder the UK is awash with foreign trucks using low-cost diesel.

What can the Government do about it? During the last fuel protest, in 2000, Gordon Brown admitted that the level of fuel duty in this country was unfair when compared with other European countries. He suggested that the introduction of a road-user charge would level the playing field. This was never achieved, despite more than £40m having been spent on consultancy fees.

Now David Cameron has indicated that he will have a go, if elected to power. The idea is that a charge would be levied on all lorries that want to make use of our roads. UK vehicles, however, would be compensated by a cut in fuel duty or Vehicle Excise Duty so that their tax bill remains the same. As a result, foreign vehicles would begin paying road taxes in the UK, thus reducing their competitive advantage.

This is something that could be introduced immediately if the Government had the political courage to put words into action. They've talked endlessly about wanting to see families and businesses through this period of economic instability. This is a measure that would help thousands of British lorry drivers at a time when many of them are really struggling.


Graham Stuart is the MP for Beverley and Holderness