Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what assessment has he made of the effect of migration provisions in the UK-EU Trade and Cooperation Agreement on the ability of UK road transport businesses to hire drivers.

The economic impacts of the measures necessary to tackle Covid-19 have changed the UK labour market with many UK-based workers needing to find new employment opportunities.

Therefore, our focus is on supporting the industry to address the driver shortage by training more UK-based drivers. This is being facilitated through apprenticeships and support for jobseekers to access driver training, including support to renew their Driver Certificate of Professional Competence (CPC).

The Department has provided grant funding for the non-profit initiative Road to Logistics to train military service leavers, ex-offenders and the long term unemployed, and to Think Logistics/Career Ready to change perceptions of the industry among young people.