Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what recent representations he has received from (a) members of the Strategic Transport Apprenticeship Taskforce and (b) other sector stakeholders on the effect of the UK leaving the EU on transport sector skills shortages.

In 2016, the Government set ambitions through the Transport Infrastructure Skills Strategy (TISS) to increase apprenticeships in road and rail client bodies to help address skills shortages in the transport sector, ensuring that the transport sector has the capacity and capability to deliver planned investment and to increase diversity.

Over the past four years, the Strategic Transport Apprenticeship Taskforce (STAT) has worked to identify skills shortages across the transport sector. To understand the likely impact of changes to migration policy post-Brexit, STAT responded to the Migration Advisory Committee’s Call for Evidence on Salary Thresholds (2019) and the Shortage Occupation List (2017 and (2020). This included employer led evidence of the potential impacts of Brexit on the transport industry.

The Department has received representations from sector stakeholders including Logistics UK which publishes an annual Skills and Employment Report and a monthly Logistics Performance Tracker. The Road Haulage Association also continue to make representations to government.