More women are needed to train as lorry drivers to help combat a long-term shortage in the UK, a cabinet minister said on Friday.
A combination of factors, including Brexit leading to the loss of European drivers, the pandemic preventing driving tests and systemic problems in the industry relating to pay and conditions have led to the shortage of qualified HGV drivers impacting deliveries across several industries.
This week petrol stations were hit by the crisis. A “handful” of BP filling stations were closed on Thursday due to a lack of available fuel, while Esso owner ExxonMobil also said a “small number” of its Tesco Alliance petrol forecourts have been impacted.
Transport Secretary Grant Shapps said he wants more women, young people and ethnic minorities to consider training in the profession.
“Ninety-nine per cent of lorry drivers in this country are white, male and an average age of 55,” he told Sky News.
“We need to make this a more attractive industry to go into and the solution to that is to have slightly higher wages and better conditions at truck stops.”
Ministers have faced pressure to ease immigration rules as an emergency measure to attract HGV drivers from overseas amid warnings that 100,000 more were needed across the industry.
Mr Shapps stressed that a shortage of HGV testing, due to the pandemic, was partly to blame for the crisis but that this was being addressed.
He also suggested adding lorry drivers to the skilled worker list for immigration purposes would not solve the problem, although he insisted nothing had been ruled out.
The issues around petrol supply, on top of problems in the food industry and rising gas prices have led to warnings the Government faces a "winter of discontent".
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Rod McKenzie of the Road Haulage Association trade body accused ministers of "government by inertia", allowing the situation to get "gradually worse" in recent months.
"We have got a shortage of 100,000 (drivers)," he told BBC’s Newsnight.
"When you think that everything we get in Britain comes on the back of a lorry - whether it’s fuel or food or clothes or whatever it is - at some point, if there are no drivers to drive those trucks, the trucks aren’t moving and we’re not getting our stuff."
Mr McKenzie added: "I don’t think we are talking about absolutely no fuel or food or anything like that, people shouldn’t panic buy food or fuel or anything else, that’s not what this is about.
"This is about stock outs, it’s about shortages, it’s about a normal supply chain being disrupted."
He said a "very short-term" measure would be to allow drivers onto the shortage occupation list and "seasonal visas" for foreign drivers.
The Government has moved to streamline the testing system and Mr Shapps promised an extra 50,000 tests a year.
Gordon Balmer, an executive director at the Petrol Retailers Association, which represents independent forecourts across the UK, recommended that motorists keep enough fuel in the tank to reach alternative filling stations in the "rare instance" that fuel is not available at the first one they visit.
Mr Balmer offered accelerated training for workers and calling on ex-military staff to fill vacancies as potential other options to help alleviate the strain on the industry.
