Delivery crisis won’t be solved without EU drivers, say hauliers

By Éilis Cronin in Industry News 31st August 2021

The government is coming under increasing pressure to relax immigration rules in order to allow the recruitment of more EU drivers to help solve the delivery crisis for retailers.

Haulage and business associations have responded sharply to last week’s advice from business secretary Kwasi Kwarteng that any driver shortage should be solved by training more UK drivers, because that would take too long to address the immediate crisis.

The Road Haulage Association said in a statement that “there is strong public support for a relaxation of immigration rules to tackle the HGV driver shortage”.

The RHA wants truck drivers to be included on the shortage occupation list as a short term measure to help the UK supply chain, while a UK-based workforce is trained up.

A poll for the website PoliticsHome indicated that 47% of respondents supported a relaxation of immigration rules for professional drivers coming from the European Union, while 21% opposed it.

RHA managing director, Rod McKenzie said that the shortage of products for retailers will continue until the government “takes action to bring the HGV driver crisis to an end”.

The Institute of Directors (IOD) said earlier this month that 81% of directors would support loosening immigration requirements as a way of easing the pressures on the labour market.

It added that labour shortages generally are also affecting salaries, with three quarters of directors saying that they are seeing wage increases of more than 5%.

Stock levels for retailers have fallen to their lowest since records began, nearly four decades ago, said the CBI.