‘Not appealing at all’: Ex-lorry drivers unmoved by government pleas for them to return to work

Government letter urging HGV licence holders to get back behind the wheel has become ‘laughing stock’, says one driver, as haulage firms become increasingly desperate for staff

A government plea for former lorry drivers to get behind the wheel will not solve a labour shortage that has left supermarket shelves empty and prompted panic buying of fuel, drivers and unions have warned.

Over the weekend, ministers scrambled to persuade those who have left the industry to take up work after a warning from retailers that they had “10 days to save Christmas”, with stocks needed now in order to avoid empty shelves during the festive season.

Ministers from the Department for Transport wrote to a million HGV licence holders asking them to consider returning to the sector. The government also announced a temporary visa scheme for 5,000 lorry drivers and 5,500 poultry workers. Competition law is also to be suspended to allow fuel companies to coordinate where they send supplies.

Unions questioned whether the plea to drivers would make a dent in the shortfall of tens of thousands thought to be needed. A spokesperson for Unite, said that while it was “sensible” to ask former drivers, perhaps only “a handful” would return while working conditions in the sector remain poor.

Unite said lorry driver and poultry processing visas were “propping up a broken and exploitative system”. The union accused poultry processing plants of offering “poverty pay and insecure contracts [that] do not compensate for the physically draining and unpleasant work”.

Tomasz Orynski, a lorry driver based in Glasgow, told The Independent that the visa scheme was “not appealing at all” and the letter had become a “laughing stock” among his colleagues.

Rafal Pakos, a Polish driver who left the UK ahead of Brexit on 1 January, warned that the scheme was “not a good idea”.

“You have to make drivers want to work in the UK,” he said. “Three months is nothing. I can’t even find a place to stay in that time.”

“The main thing that drivers will consider is a good salary,” he said, adding that tax changes which reduced drivers’ take-home pay had been a factor in persuading Polish drivers to leave the UK.

You have to make drivers want to work in the UK. Three months is nothing. I can’t even find a place to stay in that time

Rafał Pakos, Polish driver

Andy Prendergast, GMB national secretary, said the visa scheme was “like trying to put out a forest fire with a water pistol”.

He added: “It’s no surprise they aren’t queueing up to come back to the country that slung them out. Changing immigration rules or relaxing drivers’ tests is not the way to solve the HGV shortage. Paying drivers what they know they are worth, and improving appalling conditions in the industry, is.”

European trade union leaders insisted that EU drivers would be unlikely to be tempted back by the offer of a three-month visa. Edwin Artema, of the Dutch FNV Union, told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: “The EU workers we speak to will not go to the UK for a short-term visa to help UK out of the s*** they created themselves.”

He said regulation protecting drivers was “not worth the paper it is written on because there is no enforcement and no interest to enforce it down the supply chain”.

Mr Artema added: “Drivers need way more than just a visa and a payslip. A Marshall Plan is needed for the whole of western Europe to drag this entire industry back to the surface where it needs to be.”

Haulage firms have become increasingly desperate to fill roles as companies struggle with a shortage of skilled labour that has left supermarket shelves empty and prompted the panic buying of fuel.

One former driver, Jake Justice, who turns 90 next month, said he had recently been contacted by a recruitment agency representative who said there were good opportunities in the industry due to current shortages.

“I told him I would barely be able to climb into a cab. I retired 25 years ago,” he told The Independent.

The recruitment worker then suggested, after hearing Mr Justice’s age, that he would be able to help him retrain for his licence or he could drive vehicles around the yard, rather than on the road, he said. Other friends who had long retired from the industry had also been contacted by haulage firms offering them work, Mr Justice said.

I told him I would barely be able to climb into a cab. I retired 25 years ago

90-year-old former driver contacted by recruitment agency

Other government measures to tackle the driver shortage have so far fallen flat. The industry has been fiercely critical of an increase in the maximum number of driving hours per day, from 10 to 11, as well as another plan to remove some requirements from HGV driving tests. It is feared the changes could put drivers and other road users at risk.

Ministers yesterday held crisis talks aimed at bringing an end to the crisis, with the government expected to decide whether army drivers are to be drafted in to deliver fuel to petrol station forecourts.