Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what assessment he has made of the potential effect of proposed EU Mobility Package 1 on the (a) posting, (b) driving and (c) rest time of workers in the UK road transport industry.

The latest proposals in the EU Mobility Package establish a road transport sector-specific regime for the posting of workers. This is intended to provide an enforceable and proportionate set of rules, based on harmonised administrative requirements for drivers and operators and on information exchange between Member State authorities. The Government’s assessment is that this will reduce administrative burdens that can be placed on UK-based drivers operating abroad. It is also proposed to introduce a limited exemption from posting rules for bilateral international operations. UK-based drivers may therefore in some circumstances be exempt from the prevailing local minimum wage rate while working in other Member States, although this would not be expected to entail a change to their contractual entitlement.

The latest proposals in the EU Mobility Package are that the driving and rest time rules would be modified to enable a driver to return to their base at least once every four weeks. In this context, to enable more of a driver’s rest time to be taken at home, it is proposed to enable drivers to take two consecutive reduced weekly rests, provided the reduction is compensated for. The Government considers that these rules would have a very limited effect on UK-based drivers, whose working patterns do not normally entail multiple weeks away from home.