HGV Driving Licences — House of Commons, 2021-11-08
Topic: Transportation
Trudy Lynne Harrison (Conservative, Centre-right): I would like to thank hon. Members for their clear consideration of these instruments. I will respond in turn to the various points that have been raised The shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Ilford South (Sam Tarry), encouraged swift action, and we have certainly taken swift action. There is a shortage of 39,000 HGV drivers, according to my data, as a result of a variety of factors including a lack of diversity and poor quality facilities. That is why in the latest spending review we have committed £32.5 million to improving those facilities. On diversity, I am delighted to be able to inspire the House with the latest figures on vocational tests. They indicate that 56% of men are passing the tests and that 65% of women are doing so. That is an uplifting statistic on vocational heavy goods vehicle testing We are also working with the Department for Education and now have specific apprenticeship standards with a funding band of £7,000. That is really working. We are providing funding to Think Logistics and working with Career Ready. As the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) suggested, we are already working with ex-military personnel and others, including people who have retired, to help to retrain them to work in the sector once again. My hon. Friend the Member for North East Bedfordshire (Richard Fuller) questioned the timescales. Yes, we will review formally in three years and five years, but we will also review continually at every stage. Should there be a need for intervention, we will not hesitate to intervene where road safety is concerned I would really like to thank the hon. Member for Bristol South (Karin Smyth) for her work on chairing the all-party parliamentary group, and I would be delighted to accept her invitation to come and speak to the group and to understand how we can make this work. I want to reassure her, her members and, most importantly, Freddie’s family that safety is of paramount importance to the Department, and quite rightly so. We will continue to support the Tow Safe for Freddie campaign, which the Department has supported in the past, because we take road safety very seriously. The UK has some of the safest roads in the world. Our support for the campaign will continue, and will draw attention to the importance of motorists doing safety checks whenever they are towing. The hon. Member for Richmond Park (Sarah Olney) raised a number of points. I have reached the grand old age of 45, and I passed my test before 1997. I can already tow a trailer of up to 750 kg—and indeed of up to 3,500 kg—because this change came in in 1997. Earlier this year, we ran a trailer safety campaign. It was timed to coincide with the lifting of the travel restrictions and the anticipated rise in the number of motorists towing caravans and trailers. It focused on encouraging motorists to do several basic checks before setting off on their journey, and highlighted the most common defects found by Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency examiners at the roadside. This reinforces the vital importance of maintaining trailers. I very much hope that people will take advantage of the Department’s encouragement of accreditation, which will also be provided We will shortly be publishing the impact assessment. It is being handled urgently and requires clearance, including by the Regulatory Policy Committee. We will keep those timescales to a minimum, but at the earliest we expect to be able to publish the assessment before the end of the year. We understand the concern that a full analysis has not yet been published, and we are working on it urgently. It was a case of balancing the need to take action quickly to address the driver shortage against the need to assimilate evidence and analyse it in full I hope the Chamber has found the debate informative. These instruments will play a critical part in ensuring we can rapidly address the acute heavy goods vehicle driver shortage that the haulage sector faces.