Hansard

I apologise, as I will be unable to stay in the chamber for the whole debate. I have a meeting to attend and I am hosting the James Watt celebration in the garden lobby.

I am grateful to Chic Brodie for bringing the debate to the chamber, as it is important that this pressing issue remains on the Scottish Government’s radar until we can see a steady stream of new entrants into the haulage industry.

I am also grateful to my colleague Christian Allard for lodging his motion in Parliament during the first national lorry week last October, which highlighted the “love the lorry” themed events, organised by the Road Haulage Association, which allowed pupils around the country to learn more about the haulage industry.

I have of course raised the issue in the chamber myself on a number of occasions in the past two or three months and I am grateful to the transport minister and the Cabinet Secretary for Fair Work, Skills and Training for their responses.

Local hauliers in my constituency have come to me to highlight their concerns regarding the very real problem of finding suitable drivers from home and even from abroad, with the RHA indicating that there is a shortage of 45,000 suitably qualified HGV licence holders in the UK.

Iain Mitchell, the managing director of John Mitchell Haulage in Grangemouth, employs more than 100 people and has a large fleet of trucks working around the clock. However he has highlighted to me the difficulty of attracting new drivers to the industry.

He came to me with a proposal that is now being actively discussed with Skills Development Scotland, in which he would be willing to pay half the costs of training around 12 young drivers a year if SDS matched the funding. I hope that something can come of that proposal, which seems a sensible way forward and an ideal way of helping to avoid a crisis.

The cost of training for a class 1 HGV/LGV licence is more than £3,000, which is prohibitive for any future drivers, particularly if they are paying out of their own pocket, so a scheme that contributed a percentage of the costs of training drivers would, he believes, help to address the serious problem of declining numbers of drivers.

In addition to meeting Iain Mitchell, I also met local livestock haulier Stewarts of Bo’ness in my constituency, which is also experiencing significant difficulty in attracting new drivers into the industry.

Livestock haulage is specialised work and not everyone can drive a livestock transporter. Farmers and livestock hauliers have to be trained and pass tests to prove that they are competent. However, that has led to a shortage of qualified drivers, with the average age of livestock hauliers now believed to be 55. I think that that is the average age for the general haulage industry as well.

Despite high salaries, in some cases in excess of £40,000 a year to key men, more are leaving the industry than joining. They are being enticed to other haulage jobs by competitive salaries and a generally cleaner environment with non-livestock haulage, with none of the stress attached to moving livestock over long distances and trying to meet what many regard as impossible timetables. As we know, livestock hauliers are required to observe working time directive rules, which can be hard to do when working with auction marts, abattoirs and, of course, the animals. Livestock hauliers can only drive a maximum of 90 hours in a fortnight or run the risk of hefty fines. Of course, during the hectic autumn sale or back end season, there are not enough livestock hauliers to move all the animals in the limited number of driving hours that they are allowed.

Much as I hate to use the word, as I think that it is overused in this chamber, I feel that we are facing a crisis and that is the view throughout the haulage industry.

As I mentioned earlier, figures from the Road Haulage Association show that the UK is currently 45,000 drivers short and 35,000 drivers are due to retire in the next year, excluding those who have to leave for medical reasons or have found another job. Also, there are only 17,000 entering the industry annually.

The RHA has called for the United Kingdom Treasury to make £100 million available for industry funding through a targeted time-limited scheme. I hope that the UK Government is listening and will progress that. However, in the meantime, the Scottish Government can play its part. Before Christmas, I was encouraged to receive confirmation from the Minister for Transport and Islands that Skills Development Scotland is exploring a range of options to address the driver shortage.