Radical surgery is needed to ensure the UK’s road freight supply
chain and its workforce are more robust and resilient, warn MPs
on the Transport Committee.
In Road freight supply chain, MPs urge Government
to ‘level up’ the supply chain. The Committee urges Ministers to
give the logistics sector two years to deliver sufficient
drivers, workers and facilities, including high-quality services
and welfare.
Failure to do so should see the Government implement a Supply
Chain Levy to assist in building facilities and training new
drivers, conclude MPs. The Levy would require the parts of the
supply chain where margins are greatest - such as large
retailers, oil companies and online service giants - to deliver
improved standards and resilience to the supply chain which they
themselves require.
Such a mechanism must be accompanied by Government planning
reforms, says the report. Government should recognise driver
facilities as key national infrastructure assets, to be delivered
through a planning framework at a central level as planning
authorities at local government cannot be expected to deliver a
national infrastructure solution. The findings of a current lorry
parking survey should be used to set regional targets for
building additional parking capacity for drivers, with a joint
Government-industry taskforce to keep it on track.
The fragile nature of the current road freight supply chain was
brought into sharp focus by the covid-19 pandemic, exposing a
fractured and fragmented industry which has failed to solve its
own problems. The HGV sector, already facing challenges in
recruitment and retention due to low pay and failure to invest in
adequate driver facilities, found it difficult to compete with
record job vacancies across many sectors in the UK economy.
To retain and value drivers in their daily work, the Government
should set a minimum standard for driver facilities that ensures
they have safe and secure places to stop, rest and recuperate.
The report recommends that Government should lead the way by
prioritising new leases with motorway service operators operating
on Government-owned land. Just as recruits to the bus and coach
sectors are funded by their sectors, it makes no sense that
haulage drivers must pay for their own training.
The Chair of the Transport Committee, said:
“We urge Government to be brave and force the sector to get its
house in order. A Supply Chain Levy has worked previously to
incentivise reform. If the industry won’t deliver change,
Government should do so and send them the bill via increased
taxes to those who produce and sell and make the most profits.
This must be accompanied by minimum standards for planning,
facilities and employers’ treatment of HGV drivers and seafarers.
It’s the least we can ask for those who work so hard to deliver
our goods to us.
“The long-term solution lies in moving more freight to rail and
water. This will help decarbonise the sector and make it more
attractive to drivers who want to operate over shorter distances;
drivers who want to see their families at the end of a hard day
rather than facing anti-social and dangerous nights sleeping in
their cabs. In the near-term, we need better conditions to make
moving essential goods a sound career choice.
“We’ve been here before. In 2016, the Transport Committee called
for action in the haulage sector but little changed. Lack of
diversity is holding expansion in the workforce back. Women make
up as little as one per cent of the workforce. The proportion of
under-25s is under three per cent. For too long, this lack of
diversity has seen more drivers retiring than being
recruited.
“The pandemic turned a chronic problem of a lack of HGV drivers
into an acute one. Yet again, the Government had to step in to
shore up a private sector which failed to mend its fragile roof
in sunnier times. The industry needs an expensive incentive
to fix its problems rather than expect the Government, and
taxpayer, to step in when we inevitably encounter the next
crisis. The dire alternative is that drivers will go elsewhere
and the essential goods we take for granted will be in short
supply.”
