Ministers are being urged to offer emergency assistance to the UK’s road haulage industry as fuel prices expect to pass the £5 a gallon mark today.

Some 250 hauliers staged a noisy protest through central London today over the cost of diesel, to reinforce the plea from the Road Haulage Association.

By chance, the protest coincided with news of record, £7bn quarterly profits from the BP and Royal Dutch Shell oil companies.

Roger King, chief executive of the RHA, addressing a rally at Marble Arch, called for a windfall tax on the leading oil companies and for cash to be reinvested to help hauliers.

Mr King said: “Investment in the haulage industry could come from a windfall tax or from the Government’s own profits from extra VAT on fuel. We are under the cosh and hauliers are the most taxed sector of the UK economy.”

He has already written to the Chancellor, Alistair Darling, urging him to defer again the 2p hike in duty planned for October. This had been due to be introduced in April but the Treasury responded to industry concerns.

“We want him to make clear now that the October increase will also be shelved,” Mr King said.

The RHA is pressing Mr Darling and MPs to support an amendment to the Finance Bill being introduced in the Commons by Alex Salmond, Scottish First Minister, to appoint a fuel duty regulator.

Mr King said: “Every time oil rises by $2 a barrel, 1p in duty is added to a litre of fuel. The aim of the regulator would be to trigger a 1p reduction in duty every time the oil price rises to stabilise prices at the pumps.”

Ministers are also being urged to treat VAT returns from hauliers as a priority to help firms with cash flow. It is costing firms some £1,000 a week in fuel costs to keep an average size articulated lorry on the roads.

Instead of waiting four months for VAT rebates on fuel after companies submit quarterly returns, HM Revenue & Customs has been asked to pay up after two months to give emergency relief to the industry.

Organisers of the London rally, Transaction-2007, were delighted with the turnout of support from as far afield as the Midlands and mid-Wales.

The protest followed the 48-hour strike at the Grangemouth oil refinery in Scotland in a dispute over changes to pension policy.

A noisy and colourful cavalcade of 65 trucks lined Park Lane. One truck transporting a coffin to depict the demise of the haulage industry was due later to be escorted by protesters and police to the House Of Commons where a petition is to be handed to MPs.

Mick Presneill, a spokesman for the protest group, said that the problem for UK hauliers was exacerbated by the arrival of foreign trucks which could distribute goods around the country with tanks full of cheap fuel.

Mick Clifton, 37, a driver who works for JS Cook, from near Spalding, Lincolnshire, said: “The price of fuel at the moment is ridiculous. We just don’t know whether our jobs are goig to be safe. If Gordon Brown doesn’t do something about this soon he’ll be out of office.”

Huw Thomas, 47, who runs a timber haulage company in Rhayader, Powys, mid-Wales, said his business would be finished in a few weeks if prices continued to be high.

“Fuel prices are absolutely ridiculous. We have to make our presence felt today.”

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