Road hauliers are the latest British employers to declare they will be in serious trouble if Brexit restricts their access to workers from the EU, warning that tight new immigration controls could threaten the flow of lorries that keeps the UK economy moving.
It has already become clear that aviation and British ports could face major disruption unless there is rapid progress in Brexit negotiations but the road transport industry is even more central to the British economy and is nervously waiting for progress on a range of Brexit issues including access to labour and a massive increase in customs red tape at borders.
Major haulage firms say that they were battling a shortage of qualified drivers even before the Brexit referendum and now they are seeing the departure of many of the 60,000 EU-born drivers who help to keep the British fleet on the road, representing 10% of all lorry drivers working in the UK.
The Road Haulage Association, which represents 7,000 firms operating almost 100,000 Heavy Goods Vehicles, says it is bracing for a lobbying contest with powerful rival industries to ensure that the need for drivers is not ignored when free movement of labour ends.
Other industries have begun clamouring for continued access to bankers, doctors, farm and hospitality workers, academics and dozens of other types of workers as the Government vows to clamp down on immigration, which was one of the driving motivations for the vote to leave the EU.
Which Migrants Are OK?
“Being able to retain and recruit drivers from Europe is the number one issue our members are concerned about,” says Duncan Buchanan, the policy director of the RHA. Without free access to European drivers the UK would face higher costs that would feed through into price rises for the food and other goods carried by lorries “which basically means almost everything we consume,” he said.
“The fall of sterling since the Brexit vote is already having an impact on retention of workers and a lot of members are reporting they are having more difficulty getting the qualified drivers they need.” The pound’s fall has increased the haulage industry’s costs for fuel and vehicles and made British wages less attractive to foreigners.
“Every other sector will be making its case for being able to keep recruiting from the EU and we believe the criteria should not be things like higher education or wage levels, it should be about the skills we need, so if we need baristas or drivers we should bring them in.”
To lure more local workers into the haulage industry the UK would have to pay higher wages, make a much greater effort to train its own drivers and invest in better roadside facilities to help make the job more attractive, he said.
A lack of government interest and poor planning rules had fuelled a “market failure” in the provision of comfortable and accessible lorry parks and well-designed facilities for drivers, making it harder to recruit local drivers, he said.
The association says it is crucial that the Government and EU negotiators agree on a transition period of perhaps two or three years in which the UK would in effect stay in the single market and customs union to allow time for expensive customs processes to be introduced and for the industry to learn how to navigate the new bureaucracy to try to avoid massive delays for lorries at border points.
New Customs Hassle
There is now no customs system for continental road traffic, and the problems introducing such a system include the fact that there is simply no space at ports such as Dover to allow hundreds of lorries to be pulled over for customs inspections complicated by the fact that a single lorry might be carrying hundreds of separate consignments, each with its own customs forms and requirements.
Customs delays will make the British economy less efficient as they will means extra warehouse space rental, higher transport costs, the derailing of “just in time” manufacturing processes and less fresh food, as nearly 30% of all food consumed in the UK arrives on lorries from the EU.
The Freight Transport Association, which covers sea and air freight as well as land-based logistics, is taking a harder line, saying the inevitable disruption would be so great that the UK should not leave the customs unions at all.
Another important change for the road transport industry will be the end of cabotage, the system under which foreign lorries arriving in the UK with international loads are allowed to do several domestic haulage jobs before leaving the UK. That represents a small but fast-growing part of the haulage industry and environmental groups say ending the system means there will be more empty lorries on the road as foreign lorries will be unable to do domestic assignments on their return journeys.
Buchanan said the environmental concerns were a “red herring” as foreign firms had been abusing the cabotage system by using cheaper foreign fuel and lower foreign wages to compete with British carriers.
“In any case we don’t believe that any deal that is struck with the EU on new haulage arrangements will allow cabotage,” he said. “Our partner trade associations say there is no chance that the French and Germans and others will allow British vehicles to do cabotage in their markets as they do not want to set a precedent that would allow access for hauliers from further east.”
by Peter Wilson
The post Brexit: UK To Lose European Drivers appeared first on Felix Magazine.
No comments:
Post a Comment