Drivers’ Hours and Tachographs (Temporary Exceptions) (No. 4) Regulations 2021

Earl Attlee Excerpts

Monday 6th December 2021 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Earl Attlee]

That a Humble Address be presented to Her Majesty praying that the Drivers’ Hours and Tachographs (Temporary Exceptions) (No. 4) Regulations 2021 (SI 2021/1207), laid before the House on 29 October, be annulled because they fail to address the underlying cause of the shortage of HGV drivers.

Relevant document: 18th Report from the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee (special attention drawn to the instrument)

[Earl Attlee (Con)]

My Lords, in moving that the House annuls the Drivers’ Hours and Tachographs (Temporary Exceptions) (No. 4) Regulations 2021, I make it clear that I do not intend to test the opinion of the House. I remind the House that I have an interest, as I hold a C+E HGV driving licence and am a qualified HGV driving instructor, albeit somewhat out of date.

The House will be fully aware that we have faced a very serious shortage of HGV drivers, which has led in turn to petrol stations running out of fuel. There are obvious shortages of certain lines in our supermarkets and elsewhere, but these have been carefully managed by the industry to minimise the inconvenience to consumers. The good news is that, thanks to the efforts of my noble friend the Minister, the Commercial Motor magazine reports that the shortage is no longer deemed to be critical. Apparently, ONS statistics reveal that the number of HGV delivery drivers has increased from 233,000 in Q2 to 261,000 in Q3. It is reported that there are an extra 22,000 drivers aged between 45 and 65. There has also been an increase of 4,000 drivers over the age of 65 and past normal retirement age. We should congratulate my noble friend the Minister, who had the sense to write to every single HGV driver in the land—including me—asking them to come back to HGV driving.

In addition to the very slight relaxation to drivers’ hours provided by this and several other similar regulations, my noble friend has also altered some driving test requirements to free up more examiners for HGV testing. We have already debated these changes. I have no technical problem with the changes to drivers’ hours. My Motion refers to the serious underlying causes of the shortage, to which I will draw your Lordships attention. That is why I have tabled my Motion.

The first problem is now well known and concerns the lack of decent facilities for HGV drivers. This is part of what I said some time ago:

“This amendment concerns the provision of suitable rest facilities for drivers of commercial vehicles so that they can comply with the law and industry can attract and retain suitable drivers. The road transport and the bus industries are currently experiencing a shortage of drivers. Part of the cause may be the poor image and working conditions of the industry. In the past there were many establishments, collectively known as transport cafés, distributed along the trunk road network. Nowadays few survive and most have been turned into Little Chefs or Happy Eaters. Unfortunately, heavy commercial vehicle drivers are not welcome because their vehicles are large and their spend is modest in comparison with that of most car drivers.”—[Official Report, 26/7/00; col. 524.]


I went on to talk about the need for a shower at the end of a day’s driving. I made that speech 21 years ago in your Lordships’ House, so the problem is not a new one. By chance, I recently saw a cartoon in the November 1987 edition of Truck & Driver magazine. The caption was, “Well try finding a cafe round here that’s not been turned into a Little Chef”. It is a planning problem that has been around for a very long time.

In order to be granted a vocational driving licence, the applicant needs to pass a medical examination. This is vital to protect the public from the consequences of a driver being taken ill while driving. Noble Lords will recall the tragedy in Glasgow a few years ago, when six pedestrians were killed. Even before Covid-19 struck, GPs—including mine—have been very reluctant to undertake these medical examinations. For my penultimate examination, I had to go from my home near Petersfield to Maidstone in Kent to get an examination. It is obviously far from ideal for the examination to be undertaken by anyone other than the applicant’s GP, because he or she has the patient’s notes going back, often to birth. This was a factor in the Glasgow tragedy, and the tragedy was entirely avoidable if the GP had been involved.

A further issue can arise if the HGV driver experiences a medical problem. For instance, a few years ago, I needed to undergo an angiogram procedure. As a result of that procedure, my consultant cardiologist was able to assure me that I was fit and safe to drive an HGV. But the DVLA’s medical panel then took several months to reinstate my HGV entitlement. Apart from interfering with my leisure activities, it had no adverse effect on me. However, it may cause a commercial driver either to retrain or return to another trade. It is exceptionally unfair and there seems to be little that an ordinary HGV driver can do about it. Of course, I did not exercise any influence because, first, it would be improper, and also I wanted to see how it would work out for an ordinary HGV driver. I am told that the advice among drivers is not to tell the DVLA about medical conditions and just not to drive an HGV against the doctor’s advice. The poor performance of the medical panel is my noble friend’s ministerial responsibility.

A further difficulty concerns the investigation of serious road traffic collisions. These are extremely distressing for all concerned but, so far as I can see, the police are very slow to exonerate a driver when he or she appears to be blameless. This can result in unfair dismissal and difficulty in securing employment and motor insurance—yet another disincentive to being a professional HGV driver.

A commercial driver, in addition to having an HGV licence, must have a driver certificate of professional competence. Maintaining it requires 35 days of training every five years. I do not have a DCPC as I am exempt, and nor do another 70,000 group C+E drivers and yet another 70,000 group C licence holders. We do not have a shortage of HGV drivers at all, but a shortage of HGV drivers with a DCPC. The problem is that the training provided is not well regarded in the industry and many drivers let their DCPC run down and stop driving commercially. This has a serious adverse effect on part-time and occasional driving because it is not worth having a DCPC for that purpose.

We have left the EU. My noble friend the Minister could easily temporarily relax the requirement for a DCPC while she considers what is to replace it. That would still, in time, give her the corps of professional drivers that she rightly worked so hard to achieve, while the shortage of HGV drivers would be diminished in the short term.

I have banged on for many years about the licensing of goods vehicle operators. The system is still far from effective at eliminating rogue operators from the industry. These operators abuse drivers, force them to flagrantly breach drivers’ hours and give the industry a bad name.

HGV drivers are often despised, despite performing what we now recognise as a vital role in our economy. They are persecuted by traffic wardens when seeking to make a delivery and hounded by the DVSA over relatively trivial infringements of the drivers’ hours rules, while rogue operators are allowed to continue operating. They must frequently make very early starts to get our supplies delivered when and where we want them, which is simply not attractive to people coming into the industry. They also often have to defecate and urinate in the open due to lack of facilities. The staff at regional distribution centres have for decades been allowed to treat them badly for turning up a few minutes adrift from the planned schedule. The work is so unattractive that there are very few female HGV drivers.

My noble friend the Minister has correctly pointed out that many of the reasons why HGV driving is unattractive are down to the industry, and to an extent she is right. However, the two leading trade associations are not doing a first-class job for the industry as far as I can see, and some matters are not for the industry but for central government. I look forward to the Minister’s response. I beg to move.

[Baroness Randerson (LD)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Earl for ensuring that we have this important and very interesting debate. The reports of the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee have been very wide-ranging in the points that they have raised relating to the series of legislation that has come through on drivers’ hours.

The first relaxation of hours was in December 2020 until 31 March 2021 and went from 90 hours per fortnight to 99, and from nine to 11 hours per day for a maximum of two days a week. I say to noble Lords: 11 hours a day of driving? The Minister is looking at me as if I have got the information wrong. I hope she will put me right later on.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

I could possibly give an entirely new speech on this but I would probably not be popular if I did—my Whip agrees with me.

The RHA wanted something entirely different—we know that. It always wanted us to open the floodgates and allow EU drivers to come in. Indeed, I am looking at the noble Lord and trying to remember whether any good ideas have come from the Benches opposite as to how we solve the HGV crisis. I believe Keir Starmer wanted to open the doors to 100,000 EU drivers—that was the Labour way of solving this crisis. We have taken a very different stance. As the noble Lord will know, no EU drivers are willing to come flooding in anyway, as I have said many times. We have set out a range of short, medium and long-term actions. Some are very substantial; for example, we removed the HGV levy. That saves hauliers lots of money, and from that money they can pay their staff more. We have also frozen VED. As I have said right from the outset, there is not one thing that will fix this; it is a whole succession of things. Some are short, medium and long term, some are big and others are little; that is why we have 32 actions. I am proud of those 32 actions and I believe that they are fixing the crisis.

[Earl Attlee (Con)]

My Lords, I am grateful to all noble Lords who have contributed to this debate. I am especially grateful to the Minister for explaining how limited the relaxation is to the drivers’ hours. It is very helpful for her to clear up the issue of the 27% infringement rate. I have always been very well aware that when the DVSA stops a commercial vehicle it is normally acting on intelligence, so it is not surprising that it finds a high rate of infringement both on drivers’ hours and vehicle condition. It does not go and stop a Tesco’s lorry, for instance.

The noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, talked about the complexity of the drivers’ hours regulations. They are indeed very complex if you want to go right up to the limit. If you do not need to go right up to the limit, they are quite simple.

The noble Lord, Lord Rosser, talked about the lack of a strategic statement. The problem the Minister has with facilities is very wide-ranging, and the planning system is a very major obstacle to providing better facilities. I do not think £32 million will go very far; it will not be easy to change the planning system, and this is not even a matter for my noble friend’s department. However, I am extremely grateful for her responses and I beg leave to withdraw my Motion.

Motion withdrawn.