The chancellor has ignored calls to introduce a training fund to tackle the chronic shortage of HGV drivers in today’s Autumn Statement.
Despite campaigning by the RHA with support from the CILT and Motor Transport, which saw the trade association discuss the issue with transport minister Claire Perry most recently, the call ultimately fell on deaf ears with no backing forthcoming today.
In a statement that saw the fuel duty freeze maintained and an expansion of apprenticeships - with the news National Insurance payments would be abolished for those on the vocational work scheme - there was no direct help offered.
The RHA had proposed emergency £2,500 grants to be made available to hauliers to fund the training of new HGV drivers, on a time-limited basis at a predicted total cost of around £100m.
RHA chief executive Richard Burnett said: “The RHA and our members, including many of the industry’s larger firms, could not have been clearer. We face a serious and worsening shortage of lorry drivers, which is already holding back growth, and significant government funding is needed to reverse that.
“This is fast becoming the biggest issue that the road haulage industry has ever had to cope with. There is a 45,000 driver shortage now, 35,000 drivers are due to retire within the next year and only 17,000 drivers are joining the industry.
“The opportunity was there to end the long trend of under-investment and wholesale reliance on bringing in drivers from Eastern Europe. We were very clear that funding would change industry behaviour and that the government could lead that, as part of a package of measures to strengthen recruitment from the UK.”
Burnett said that 30 months ago the logistics sector skills council, Skills for Logistics, identified the lack of funding as a key reason why a driver shortage was on the horizon.
“Funding is readily available in many other, less vital sectors of the economy, with a limited level of availability for training lorry drivers, which is inaccessible and wholly inadequate.
“We put forward a targeted solution to a real problem, with massive support from the industry. It is very disappointing that the government has turned a deaf ear,” said Burnett.
