Highlighting the urgent nature of the need to resolve the UK’s growing shortage of HGV drivers, Roads Minister Baroness Vere met with logistics industry trade bodies – to include the Road Haulage Association (RHA) – on June 16th 2021. With the UK supply chain already starting to misfire due to the worsening lack of drivers, action is self-evidently needed immediately.
This was a view echoed by RHA executive Richard Burnett who said “The need for action is clear and urgent. We and many others have provided overwhelming evidence that the shortage is getting worse, meaning that the situation must be addressed right now.” – something that forms the consensus across the industry as a whole.
Issues Occurring Across the Supply Chain
Also meeting with the Roads Minster was DWP minister Mims Davies and representatives from all types of companies that exist across the supply chain, to include those in manufacturing, retail, food production and hospitality. Front and centre of the discussions was the huge scale of the issue and what short, medium and long-term measures could be implemented.
Amongst the topics mentioned were issues relating to HGV driver training as a whole, Brexit’s impact, Driver CPC, apprenticeships and access to non-UK labour. Also discussed was the lack of facilities and safe parking for drivers and the need to treat the role as one that deserved respect – due to what the job entails and its huge importance to the country’s economy.
A Commitment to Look Into Options
Whilst nothing concrete has yet come out of the talks, what was given was a government commitment to look into measures that could be used to address the range of issues raised. Something that industry bodies have been calling for is the reclassification of HGV drivers as skilled workers, which would allow EU drivers to obtain UK skilled worker visas, however, it is not known if this is part of the government’s thinking right now.
What is for sure though is that Brexit has had a huge impact on the availability of HGV drivers, with new figures showing that the number of EU workers looking to come to Britain has dropped by a third since it came to pass. Essentially, things cannot carry on ‘as is’ forever without serious ramifications, so it’s surely a matter of ‘when’ and not ‘if’ something significant is done about it.
Helping UK Companies to Keep Moving
At HGVC, we offer hassle-free HGV driver training for businesses across the UK, allowing them to minimise the impact of the current UK driver shortage. Regardless of whether your company needs to upscale 10 employees or 1,000, we have the experience, expertise and infrastructure to offer both small and large-scale HGV licence acquisition programs.
If you would like to know more about our fully managed services take care of everything from on-boarding to analysis and reporting, please send us a message via the link below.
