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Petrol station closures spark lorry driver row | Petrol station closures spark lorry driver row |
(about 2 hours later) | |
The closure of some petrol stations has reignited a row over lorry driver shortages in the UK. | |
A "handful" of BP stations, and a small number of Esso-owned Tesco Alliance stations, were closed on Thursday due to a lack of delivery drivers. | |
Driver shortages have been exacerbated by the Covid-19 pandemic and Brexit. | Driver shortages have been exacerbated by the Covid-19 pandemic and Brexit. |
The Road Haulage Association says the UK is 100,000 drivers short, and has urged the government to relax visa restrictions for foreign workers. | |
But the government said it wanted employers to make "long-term investments in the UK domestic workforce instead of relying on labour from abroad". | |
While the UK does not lack petrol and diesel at refineries, getting it to forecourts has been a problem in some areas. | |
It is the latest problem caused by driver shortages, which have already led to supply problems in other industries, including supermarkets. | |
Rod McKenzie, policy director of the RHA, said: "Everything we get in Britain comes on the back of a lorry - whether it's fuel or food or clothes. | |
"Something urgently needs to be done by the government." | "Something urgently needs to be done by the government." |
On foreign workers, he said: "We've asked for a short-term measure - it's very short-term - to allow drivers onto the shortage occupation list, and look at seasonal visas for overseas drivers, not European necessarily." | |
He added "we do need to attract a new generation of Brits into the industry...we need to make the industry more attractive". | |
Supermarket Iceland - which is about 100 drivers short - joined Morrisons and Ocado in calling for the government to add HGV drivers to the list of shortage occupations. | |
That would allow foreign workers to apply for skilled worker visas to fill the current gaps. | |
"I think the solution - even if it's temporary - is very, very simple," said Iceland managing director Richard Walker. "Let's get HGV drivers onto the skilled worker list." | |
Why is there a shortage of lorry drivers? | |
50,000 more lorry driver tests promised a year | |
Mr McKenzie said that, on top of a historic shortage of drivers, the industry had lost 20,000 European drivers due to Brexit, while the pandemic had forced 40,000 driver training tests to be cancelled. | |
He told BBC Newsnight that consumers should not expect "absolutely no fuel or food" but said there would be some shortages. Downing Street said people should continue buying fuel as normal. | |
Businesses across the food, fuel and construction sectors have been complaining about driver shortages for months. | |
BP temporarily closed a number of petrol stations earlier in summer, when driver shortages also caused short-term supply problems for McDonald's, Nandos, and the pub chain Wetherspoons. | |
Some councils have also been forced to cancel bin collections. | |
On Thursday, BP - which has 1,200 petrol stations in the UK - said it was working hard to address the latest issues, and was prioritising getting fuel to the busiest service stations such as those on motorways. | |
Esso said that a "small number" of its 200 Tesco Alliance retail sites were affected on Thursday, and apologised to customers for any inconvenience. | |
A survey by the Road Haulage Association of its members this year reported a number of reasons for the shortage | |
Speaking on BBC Question Time on Thursday evening, Transport Secretary Grant Shapps suggested visa changes would not solve the problem, but said nothing had been ruled out. | |
He said the "bottleneck" had been caused by getting new drivers qualified and bringing people back into the job market after the pandemic. | |
He also said working conditions "hadn't been pleasant" and that the government was "happy to see" higher salaries being offered to drivers. | |
But shadow justice secretary David Lammy said visas were needed in various sectors, telling Mr Shapps: "You promised that immigration would come down and you know that it will need to go up if we are to deal with these problems." | |
Conservative MP Andrew Bridgen said there was "an endemic problem with retention and recruitment" in the industry. | |
"We're actually not short of HGV drivers per se - we've got 600,000 people who are qualified to drive those big trucks, but only 300,000 people chose to work in the industry," he told BBC Newsnight. | |
"Pay and conditions have been suppressed for a very long term by bringing in EU migrants who are willing to work for those wages and conditions." | |
Mr Bridgen suggested the industry needed to modernise and improve working conditions to retain young drivers. | |
The average age of a heavy good vehicle (HGV) driver is 55, with less than 1% under the age of 25, according to the Road Haulage Association. | |
In its recent survey of 616 hauliers, retiring colleagues and Brexit topped the list of reasons behind the driver shortages. | |
Respondents also cited tax changes to rules known as IR35, which have made it more expensive for hauliers from elsewhere in Europe to work or be employed in the UK. | |
In recent weeks, the Department for Transport has made it quicker for HGV drivers to get their licences, but the RHA criticised the changes as a risk to road safety. | |
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