Role of road freight and logistics sector during the covid-19 pandemic

That this House welcomes the vital role that the road freight and logistics sector has played during the COVID-19 pandemic ensuring that food and vital medical supplies have kept moving; further notes that many within the sector continue to face significant financial challenges due to the lockdown of other industries such as retail and construction; calls on the Government to ensure that all parts of the industry are protected through the crisis such that they ensure the economy can bounce back as the Prime Minister has suggested; and calls on the Chancellor of the Exchequer to ensure that further measures are introduced to support the sector now and during the UK’s recovery including a 100 per cent Government backed invoice financing scheme, suspension of fuel duty for the sector, greater flexibility in the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme, the expansion of the business rates holiday to include all haulage sites and a new lorry retention scheme to ensure those hauliers whose trucks are currently not in use can survive.