HGV Driving Licences

Richard Fuller Excerpts

Monday 8th November 2021 Commons Chamber

[Richard Fuller (North East Bedfordshire) (Con)]

I commend both my hon. Friend the Minister for proposing some measures, and the shadow spokesman, the hon. Member for Ilford South (Sam Tarry), for asking some very serious and sensible questions about some of the issues, and I do hope that the Minister will respond to a couple of those. I should mention that I am a member of the all-party group on trailer and towing safety. Its chair, the hon. Member for Bristol South (Karin Smyth), is here, and she may be speaking later.

I have a couple of questions for the Minister. It is interesting that the first arises from a constituent coming to see me at one of my constituency surgeries, which I think points out the importance of our being able to meet our constituents. Driving is a task that has always been quite difficult for me, so driver safety issues have always been key in my mind. Although I am not too familiar with heavy goods vehicles, it seems to me that there must be a substantial difference between a rigid HGV and one with a trailer, and that the driving safety requirements of the two should be significantly different. When my constituent came to see me, he showed me the reversing test for one of these vehicles and how much more complicated it is for a trailer compared with a rigid vehicle.

My first question to the Minister, echoing what the shadow spokesperson said, is: what assessment has been made by the Government of the safety difference between those two types of vehicle? We are making quite a significant change by not requiring people who have had training on rigid HGVs to go forward to training on one with a trailer, allowing people to go straight from being able to drive to car to being able to use an HGV with a trailer. What safety assessment was made not just in the consultation, but separately by the Department?

May I also ask about the availability of spaces for testing? Although increasing capacity may be an issue, and we hear numbers bandied around, both in this debate and before, about how many drivers we are short—I think the range goes from 20,000 to 90,000—nobody actually knows what the shortage is or how long it will last. That is why the Government are right to come up with a range of policies, including those proposed today. Increasing capacity is not the same as clearing the backlog because where we have that capacity is just as important as how much capacity we have. Again, I have anecdotal evidence from my constituent—I would be interested to know about this from the Minister—that local facilities have a surplus of spaces available for tests. What assessment has my hon. Friend made about where capacity shortages are? Is there a geographic understanding of where those spaces might be, and of where they might be required?

Finally, let me reiterate the point made by the hon. Member for Ilford South (Sam Tarry). It looks strange that this change will take place for three years, rather than for six months or 12 months. It looks like trying to achieve a regulatory change not quite through the back door, but without saying that we are trying to make such a change. It would be reassuring if the Minister provided some response on her and the Department’s intentions on that matter.