Brexit 'to blame' for lorry driver shortage says Dr Shola

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The UK is starting to feel the effects of the departure of thousands of European lorry drivers as Brexit, Covid, poor working conditions, and low pay have pushed them to leave the industry. Without lorry drivers, products like food do not get delivered – in a globalised world, the UK population is dependent on international transport of goods.

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The knock-on effects of lorry driver shortages have been felt by major brands who have had to close their sites across the country.

Among those worst affected is household name Nandos, who have had to shut 50 restaurants, some BP petrol garages have shut, Iceland is cancelling 30-40 deliveries a day, McDonald’s have had to stop serving milkshakes and bottled drinks, and Haribo is struggling to deliver to the UK.

Express readers were asked “which holds more blame for lorry driver shortages? Brexit, employers or don’t know?”

A huge majority of Express readers, 87 percent, say Brexit is to blame, according to a poll of 37,259 people held from 12pm August 27 to 8am August 31.

A reader, who is a lorry driver, said: “We had to obtain a CPC to keep driving the vehicles we had been driving without a CPC, but at our own expense.

“Which is not cheap, at the cost of a full weeks training, just to keep doing what we had always been doing.

“A lot never bothered and just gave up driving.

“That was EU legislation and created a driver shortage.”

Duncan Walker, who also has a HGV license, said: “I do not use it [HGV license], thanks to the fact that I have to pay to sit in a classroom for a week, at a cost to myself of £500, to be taught how to do a job I had been doing for over 40 years, every couple of years.”

Another person demanded: “It’s time this government spent our taxes on new driver training and testing centres instead of wasting it on HS2, and drop some of the red tape the EU introduced on HGV drivers who will only be operating in the UK.”

Approximately 2,000 drivers are leaving the industry every week, often due to retirement, but only about 1,000 new recruits are joining the workforce in that same timeframe.

Haulage companies want the Government to add drivers to the Shortage Occupations list, allowing them to qualify for a skilled worker visa and making the border crossing far easier.

The Government rejected a call to issue 10,000 temporary visas to EU workers, and ministers instead decided to relax driving test rules and legal driving hours, from nine to 11 per day.

Royal Haulage Association chief executive Richard Burnett said: “The plans that government has put in place to support the industry aren’t working.

“They’re not filling that gap quickly enough.”

The Home Office said in a statement: “The British people repeatedly voted to end free movement and take back control of our immigration system and employers should invest in our domestic workforce instead of relying on labour from abroad.”

An Express reader echoed this sentiment, saying: “Another example of UK companies relying on foreign drivers to keep costs low and not pay for training.”

Someone else agreed: “The fault is squarely with the transport industry, like agriculture.

“It failed to invest in British people and relied on cheap Europeans, under the excuse that the UK wanted ‘cheap’ food.

“Now the reckoning has come home and it’s them that have caused it.”

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Many readers argued that the blame for a lack of lorry drivers should not be placed on the exodus of foreign drivers leaving due to Brexit, but instead on the easy border crossing that being part of the EU allowed in the first place.

Some say that if the UK was never a part of the EU, then the country would not be faced with shortages because major businesses would have been forced to employ British drivers at fair rates.

One voter argued: “A shortage of 90,000 truck drivers caused by 15,000 European drivers going home… really?

“The problem was caused by European drivers coming over in the first place and depressing wages across the industry.”

But is borderless movement to blame, or should employers have taken responsibility and made the moral choice to pay more for British drivers?

A reader said: “Greedy haulage companies who did not invest in home-grown talent and instead employed cheaper European drivers are to blame.

“There are thousands of young men and women who would love to have a HGV licence.”

In fact, last year, 40,000 HGV tests were cancelled by the DVLA due to the Covid-19 pandemic, creating a huge back-log of Britons waiting to get their license and join the industry.

Some major companies, like supermarkets, have started to offer incentives, as meat processors are already six weeks behind in Christmas stock preparation and the situation is becoming more and more desperate by the week.

Tesco is offering drivers a £1,000 joining bonus, as are Waitrose, on top of a pay rise of about £2 an hour, and Aldi has increased wages for drivers to earn up to £18.41 per hour.

HGV drivers hired through agencies have gone from earning £350 a day to a huge £800, and some are even offering joining incentives of up to £5000.

Craig Stevens, Managing Director at major logistics company STD Developments Ltd, said: “The drivers can command more money – the profitability of the transport industry is very small in normal circumstances and that means we’ll have to up prices for our customers.”

One of our readers agreed: “Increasing drivers pay would doubtless increase the number of drivers but it would also increase costs and therefore prices.

“A great way to start an inflationary wage spiral.”

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