HGV Driver Shortages

Lord Carrington of Fulham Excerpts
Monday 13th September 2021

(2 years, 6 months ago)

Lords Chamber
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Baroness Vere of Norbiton Portrait Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)
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Gosh, do I have some jobs for my noble friend. He is, however, absolutely right: it may well be that some of these hundreds of thousands of people with HGV licences do not want to return to the sector because, historically, it has been seen as a sector that does not treat its employees very well. The only way to fix that is to get the haulier sector working with the customers and the supply chain in the distribution centres. The Government have already produced an internal report on lorry parking. We will look very carefully at what we can do to go beyond the changes to the planning system that we have already put in place.

I take my noble friend’s point on the Driver CPC. The House may remember that we were able to extend it last year, but that was using EU legislation. I will do what I can on the Driver CPC. It is a good safety mechanism, but we might be able to do something, although significant changes would require primary legislation at this time.

Lord Carrington of Fulham Portrait Lord Carrington of Fulham (Con)
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My Lords, has my noble friend heard the stories about considerable delays in renewing HGV licences for drivers? There seems to be a problem with the DVLA’s processing of renewal applications. Will my noble friend look at the problems in the DVLA and try to speed up the process? That would have a big impact on the number of drivers available.

Baroness Vere of Norbiton Portrait Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)
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That is an excellent point. I spoke to the DVLA only this afternoon, and indeed the Secretary of State and I asked it to prioritise provisional vocational licences quite some time ago. One thing that people must realise, if they are waiting for renewal of a vocational licence, is that under Section 88 it is highly likely that they would still be able to drive even though their licence has not been renewed. If your application has been done—if it is in and it is correct—under Section 88 you can still drive. We need to get that out there. I completely take my noble friend’s point, though, and we are in very frequent discussions with the DVLA to see how we can get as many licences through the system as possible.