Volumetric Concrete Mobile Plants

Peter Grant Excerpts

Thursday 22nd June 2023 Westminster Hall

[Mr Carmichael]

Had I known that the hon. Gentleman had that level of expertise, I would have had him on the all-party parliamentary group for lower carbon construction vehicles a long time ago. I agree with him. I do not want to reheat old debates, but we are where we are today because there was not a proper economic and environmental impact assessment at the time. I hope the Minister will indicate that the Government are willing to revisit the issue. If we go through the process properly, we will find that there is a better way of dealing with the issue, but I will let the Minister speak for himself.

VCMs operate right across the United Kingdom. Their manufacture and use are estimated to contribute £380 million to the economy and employ more than 15,000 skilled workers. They operate the length and breadth of the country, and in communities such as those that I represent they are of prime importance to the local construction sector. Businesses such as Andrew Sinclair Ltd in Orkney and Tulloch Developments in Shetland tell me regularly about the desperately detrimental impact that the proposed changes will have on them.

Companies with VCMs operate in at least 134 constituencies and are a truly integral part of the country’s construction industry. For almost 50 years, they have operated within a proportionate regulatory environment. Until 2018, VCMs on four axles could run at the manufacturer’s design weight, which is often about 41 tonnes. However, in 2018, the Department for Transport decided to impose a 32 tonne limit for all VCMs, enacted through the Goods Vehicles (Plating and Testing) (Miscellaneous Amendments) Regulations 2017. The limit forces VCM operators to phase out their current VCMs by 2028, replacing them with the 32 tonne model, which is equally expensive but less effective. Lighter vehicles mean more journeys on the road and more carbon emissions as a consequence.

That is despite the fact that Highways England’s 2017 report endorsed the operation of VCMs at about 44 tonnes on five axles and 38.4 tonnes on four axles. That proposal had the support of the then Transport Minister, the right hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Sir John Hayes). To be less than generous, this is a classic example of an obscure regulation changed by civil servants that causes a massive headache for businesses in the real world.

[Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP)]

The right hon. Gentleman said that, if the proposal goes through, there will be more journeys by lighter vehicles. Has his APPG looked into how many additional drivers will be needed to drive those additional vehicles? Is there a surplus of such drivers in the construction industry? The advice I am getting is that very few parts of the construction industry have too many workers just now.

[Mr Carmichael]

Yes, indeed. I think the hon. Gentleman knows the answer to that question. The truth of the matter is that heavy goods vehicle and lorry drivers are in scarce supply, and that is being felt not just in the construction industry but throughout the supply chain for just about every possible sector. That is another of the operations of the law of unintended consequences.

The frustration that brings us to the debate is that there has been strong opposition to the plans, led by organisations such as the Batched on Site Association, which feel that, until today, they have not been able to get a hearing. I very much hope that, after the Minister’s response, they will feel that they are at last being heard.

The change has no support among the operators, will yield no benefits to the construction industry overall and threatens the very future of VCMs in this country and the benefits that come with them. The most direct consequence of the Government’s plan is that VCMs will be limited in the amount of concrete they can carry. Operators continuing after 2028 will have to carry less weight, which is inefficient for them, their customers and the overall economy.

Traditional drum mixers and VCMs can produce something in the region of 8 cubic metres of concrete. However, because VCMs carry all the extra equipment that turns them into mobile plants, including conveyor belts to mix the sand, mixing equipment, cement, water and aggregates, they weigh notably more. Forcing VCM weights down to 32 tonnes cuts their capacity to between 6.5 cubic metres and 7 cubic metres of any mix of concrete on one trip. That has a significant impact on their efficiency, with knock-on effects on cost-effectiveness and the viability of the industry to continue at its current capacity.

The industry predicts that the changes coming in 2028 will have a dire impact on the sector. The Minister will have heard dire predictions from sectors affected by change before—we all have—and scepticism when such interests bring forward their concerns is healthy and necessary in Government. There is, however, significant and objective evidence that points to the industry’s predictions being well founded, and possibly even understated. After the Department announced the weight limit reduction, sales of VCMs fell from 55 million in 2017 to 9 million in 2020—still some eight years ahead of the deadline. Operators have already started voting with their feet—or, more accurately, their wheels—to the detriment of the sector and the construction industry as a whole. If the industry suffers and shrinks because of the regulations, many of its benefits will be lost.

Furthermore, traditional drum mixers can carry only one strength of concrete at a time, whereas VCMs have the benefit of carrying multiple if required. Take this simple example: if a customer needs only 4 cubic metres of strong concrete and 3 cubic metres of medium-strength concrete, they will have to pay for two concrete mixers if heavier VCMs are banned. VCMs mix concrete on site and can do so at whatever strengths are required and, crucially, all on one lorry. Without VCMs, such situations would be much more difficult to manage. That is why VCMs are such an important, if small and perhaps slightly niche, part of the concrete sector and the construction industry.

I have had representations from right across the country since securing this debate a mere eight days ago. The message from every corner—from those who are charged with representing the sector as a whole, to individual companies—remains the same. Sonny Sangha, founder of iMix Concrete, who operates a 32 tonne VCM as well as his current fleet of four traditional 38.4 tonne VCMs, talked to me about the estimated impact of the Government changes. He said:

“We estimate an annual loss of turnover of around £100,000 per VCM at 32 tonnes. The loss of capacity also means the need for purchasing more vehicles to accommodate the workload now that we have VCMs on both weight limits...We can see a huge difference in output and economic performance between the vehicles. The new 32T vehicle is only able to carry around 6/7m3 of concrete (depending on mix type), whereas with the other vehicles we can carry a comfortable 8m3 of concrete.”

The root cause of the problem is that there has not been an adequate economic or environmental impact assessment. The consultancy group Regeneris was brought in by the Batched on Site Association to calculate the impact of cutting the weight of VCMs to 32 tonnes. It found that a 27% cut on a 44 tonne VCM and a 16.6% cut on a 38.4 tonne VCM is likely to add 14 million more lorry miles to UK roads and 598,000 more lorry journeys each year. There will be 200 more VCMs on the roads to make up for the carrying of smaller loads, pumping 120,000 additional tonnes of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. There will be a 20% increase in CO₂, nitrogen oxide and particulates, generating extra carbon costs in excess of £7 million per annum. That will also require an additional 200 HGV drivers at a time of shortages. On top of that, because drum mixers have a two-hour production life for concrete, much of the concrete going to landfill comes from drum mixers.

--- Later in debate ---

[Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP)]

Before I start my summing up, Mr Efford, with your permission I will briefly mention the passing of Winnie Ewing—probably the greatest politician that we have ever sent down here. I hope that in due course the House will have the opportunity to pay a fitting tribute to a giant on whose shoulders many of us are proud to stand.

The right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael) has set out the arguments very powerfully indeed. If there were powerful arguments against his case, he is the kind of person who would have introduced them to his speech. The reason that he has not given us those arguments and explained why they do not carry any weight is that there does not seem to be any argument now. There might have been an argument in 2017-18—I do not know what it was, but there might have been. I cannot see what the argument is now, and I do not think the Government can, which is why they are going in the opposite direction in relation to the weight limits on a lot of other kinds of HGVs.

I can understand that there will sometimes be an assumption in the eyes of the public that anything that reduces the weight of a lorry on our roads is a good thing, but the public often forgets, as do politicians, that reducing the maximum weight of a vehicle does not necessarily reduce the total amount of stuff that it can carry on our roads. As has been pointed out in this case, if we reduce the maximum weight of a cement-mixing lorry that is allowed on the roads, only two things can happen: either there are many more journeys or far fewer things getting built and repaired.

The construction industry in Scotland generates about £17 billion for the Scottish economy and, in 2021, employed 158,000 people. It is also one of the biggest producers of carbon emissions in Scotland, as I have no doubt it is in the rest of the United Kingdom, so there is clearly a huge necessity for Governments and industry to work together. We will not get to net zero unless we work with the construction industry towards a net zero future for that industry. But I do not think that a change in the weight that we are talking about here is a part of that. As we have heard, if anything, it might make the problem even worse.

It would be reasonable to ask the Government to not necessarily announce immediately that they are going to drop the decision, but to ask them to at the very least come up with a more up-to-date and more relevant impact assessment on the economic and environmental impact, based on how the world is today, not how it was in 2017 or 2018, because the world has changed in a lot of ways since then.

As I indicated in my question to the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland earlier, it is all very well saying that businesses will just have to buy more slightly less heavy vehicles, operate them in a different way and lose more money, but who will drive these things? We do not have enough HGV drivers in the United Kingdom as it is—thank you very much, Brexit. That is one of the benefits we were not told about before 2016. Where do we think all these other drivers will come from? What impact will that have on the construction industry’s costs if it gets caught up in a wage war with other users of heavy-goods vehicles?

What account are we taking of today’s interest rates increase—the highest we have had since the end of the banking crash in 2008? That makes investment in new homes, for example, a lot less attractive than it was. We need the impact of that to be built in to any further assessment.

We will need the construction industry for the changes in our infrastructure. Not all infrastructure development is good by any stretch of the imagination. There is a need, for example, for a massive hospital and school rebuilding programme. That is already happening apace, but there is still a lot more to be done. We still need to build more homes for people to live in. We have far too many homes for people to use as holiday homes once in a while, but not enough homes that are suitable for people to live in in the places they want to live—for example, close to their work.

There will be a significant amount of new-build construction as well as rebuild, repair and maintenance construction needed for as long as any of us will be here, and probably for several lifetimes after. We need to help the industry to address the issues that it has just now with its impact on the environment. I think the industry is ready for that discussion and is willing to change.

But I think the change that is being discussed here is one that the industry is resisting, not just because industry tends to resist anything that it does not like, but because it can see that that will significantly threaten the viability of a lot of small businesses across the United Kingdom, and because it can see that the problem that the change is supposed to address is likely to make it even worse. I look forward to hearing what the Minister has to say.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Minister of State, Department for Transport (Jesse Norman)]

It is a delight to serve under you in the Chair, Mr Efford. I apologise to the Chamber that the roads Minister, the Under-Secretary of State for Transport, my hon. Friend the Member for North West Durham (Mr Holden), is unavoidably detained, but I was involved with this issue when I was roads Minister, so I hope that I can bring some degree of understanding.

I very much associate myself with the remarks made by the hon. Member for Glenrothes (Peter Grant) in relation to the just announced death of Winnie Ewing, who was by any standards a great politician and a great spokesman for her party and her views.

I thank the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael) for this motion and for the work he has done on this issue. Let me start by making a fundamental point. In 2017 and 2018, legal changes were made in relation to volumetric concrete mixers in two areas, as he highlighted. One change was to include volumetric concrete mixers in the operator licensing system, which ensures that VCMs are in the same regulatory regime as most large goods vehicles. As far as I understand it, there is no request to revisit that change. The second change concerned the inclusion of volumetric concrete mixers in the annual heavy vehicle roadworthiness testing regime. They were previously exempted, in part because of the difficulty of accommodating large vehicles in testing stations. However, as VCMs are based on a standard HGV chassis, it became clear over time that they could be accommodated on that basis.

It is important to say, however, that no changes were made to the maximum permitted weights for volumetric concrete mixers by regulation. It is also important to see that in context. The right hon. Member for Leeds Central (Hilary Benn) asked whether some of these recent announcements really should be ignored because, as he read it, they were about higher weights. The answer is that no increase to axle weights was announced, and we are principally concerned with axle weights.

Inclusion in the annual heavy vehicle test requires a plate displaying the maximum on-road weight of the vehicle. This displays beyond doubt what is the legally accepted maximum weight on roads of a heavy goods vehicle. That is often different from the maximum weight a vehicle is permitted off-road, or on private land, and which the vehicle chassis can bear.

The Department recognised that there had been a significant period previously of operations on public roads by some volumetric concrete mixers at higher weights than these unchanged maximum on-road weights, a situation that it and others regard as illegal. Therefore, the Department sought views and checked the feasibility of a limited temporary period of operation at higher maximum permitted weights for volumetric concrete mixers. Of course, this is not an uncontested issue. There are other parties—whether they be local authorities, mayoralties, or other players in the relevant market—who have views that may not directly accord with all the views held and discussed in this debate.

Following engagement with parts of the industry and a written consultation, Ministers decided to allow an exceptional temporary weight allowance for volumetric concrete mixers for up to 10 years. Other possibilities were considered, and discussions were held at that time with parts of the industry, but no other exceptions were ever approved by Ministers.

The exceptional temporary weight allowance is a significant adaptation for VCMs, which comes despite the extra wear and tear that they impose on road surfaces. Load modelling done by the Department in collaboration with National Highways—which, at that time, was Highways England—highlighted a particular risk to bridge structures, which affects the durability of this exceptional arrangement. It is therefore not true, as I think was implied in one contribution to the debate, that in some sense National Highways has signed off higher weights. On the contrary, it found in its report that those weights sit outside the bridge load model and therefore are likely to increase wear on bridges.

[Peter Grant]

The Minister mentions the particular issue of bridges that might not be able to sustain a higher weight. Why is a weight limit not placed on individual bridges, so that the heavier vehicles can be allowed on the parts of the road network that can sustain such loads?

[Jesse Norman]

That is a separate question, and, of course, local authorities may or may not choose to do such things. This is about what the view of National Highways was, and as I have said, its view was that there was a particular risk to bridge structures and that that was one of the constraints on the durability and longevity of this arrangement.

An initial assessment into road wear by the Department suggested that increasing the weight limit for four-axle volumetric concrete mixers from 32 tonnes to 38.4 tonnes could increase average road wear by between 110% and 220% per vehicle. The exact impact is heavily dependent on the vehicle’s loading.

The Department recently announced the introduction of longer semi-trailers into general use because many operators run out of trailer space before reaching the permitted maximum gross vehicle weight. These longer semi-trailers are up to 2.05 metres longer than a standard trailer, but are designed to carry the same weight as standard trailers. Therefore, there is no increase in the normal maximum weight or axle weights for vehicles using the longer semi-trailers.

The Department recently announced regulations to implement an increase in weight limits for certain alternatively fuelled or zero-emission vehicles. The weight limit increase is up to a maximum of 1 tonne for an alternatively fuelled vehicle and a flat 2 tonnes for a zero-emission vehicle. In all cases, the maximum weight limit for individual axles—again, the key measure—remains unchanged. The vehicle types that are having their weight limits changed by this regulation include articulated lorries and road train combinations with five or six axles normally limited to 40 tonnes and four-axle combinations normally limited to 36 or 38 tonnes. No additional weight allowance will apply to the heaviest articulated lorry and road train combinations of 44 tonnes or four-axle rigid motor vehicles of 32 tonnes.