Boris ‘set to offer visas for foreign truckers’

U-turn plan to ease lorry crisis

BORIS Johnson was last night set to make a dramatic U-turn and offer visas to foreign lorry drivers in a bid to tackle the shortage.

A lack of drivers has caused chaos at petrol stations, forcing the Prime Minister to cave in to demands to relax visa rules.

Up to 5,000 drivers are expected to be allowed in to keep the economy moving under a package of measures set to be finalised this weekend, sources said.

Meanwhile, soldiers will be drafted in to help at HGV driving test sites to clear a huge backlog and fresh incentives will be offered to those with lorry licences to try to make them return to the workforce.

Cabinet ministers have been split on the proposals but those opposed appeared to have been won over yesterday due to the gravity of the situation.

Officials insisted the visa rule change would be ‘very short-term’ with the Government adamant that the industry needs to adapt to prevent future crises.

A source said: ‘We believe in British workers being paid properly and we will not give in to big businesses who want to change immigration rules to drive down wages.’ Transport Secretary Grant Shapps said early yesterday that he was wary about importing cheap foreign labour to solve the issue.

‘We’ve started to see people come into the sector to alleviate this problem and what I don’t want to do is undermine that as we bring people in, attracted by higher salaries and wages,’ he told the BBC.

‘What I don’t want to do, and I’ve been hinting at this, is undercut with, as has happened before, cheaper European drivers and then find our drivers drop out

‘Risk of Christmas disruption’

because they are being undercut. That doesn’t solve the problem, it just creates a new problem.’

Ministers held crunch talks yesterday afternoon to thrash out a solution to the shortage.

A No10 spokesman said last night: ‘We have ample fuel stocks in this country and the public should be reassured there are no shortages. But like countries around the world, we are suffering from a temporary Covid-related shortage of drivers needed to move supplies around the country. We’re looking at temporary measures to avoid any immediate problems but... we introduce will be very strictly time limited. We are moving to a high-wage, high-skilled economy and businesses will need to adapt with investment in recruitment and training to provide long-term resilience.’

Ministers had been under pressure from industry leaders and MPs to relax visa rules. The British Retail Consortium, which speaks for all major chains, said if a solution could not be found in ten days, there would be ‘significant disruption’ in the run-up to Christmas.

Andrew Opie of the BRC said: ‘HGV drivers are the glue which hold our supply chains together.

‘The UK faces a shortfall of around 90,000 HGV drivers and it is consumers who suffer the consequences. Retailers are working hard to minimise the impact, attracting and training new drivers through increased pay, bonuses and new driver training schemes. The Government must play its part by creating temporary work visas to allow drivers from abroad to fill the gap and keep our supply chains moving while new drivers are being trained and qualified.’

Kate Nicholls, chief executive of UKHospitality, also called for visas, adding that the situation ‘has the potential to cause irreversible damage to the supply chain’.

Liberal Democrat business spokesman Sarah Olney demanded action. She said: ‘The Conservatives must put common sense above ideology and relax visa rules

so we can recruit more lorry drivers from abroad.’

Another 5,000 visas could be given to foreign workers in food processing, particularly in the poultry industry, the Financial Times reported. They would be expected to last from three and six months.

■ A private equity-backed haulage firm that specialised in chilled food deliveries to major supermarkets filed for administration yesterday. Adding to concerns about gaps on shelves, EVCL Chill had contracts with Asda and Sainsbury’s.