Large Goods Vehicle Drivers: Vacancies

(asked on 17th November 2021) - View Source

Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what steps he is taking to provide further support to the DVLA in helping to reduce the shortage of HGV drivers.


Answered by
Trudy Harrison Portrait
Trudy Harrison
This question was answered on 24th November 2021

The Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency has focused extra resource on vocational driving licence applications to support the driver shortage. This has been successful with routine applications for vocational driving licences, including for HGVs, now being processed within normal turnaround times of five working days. The DVLA has recently processed more than 40,000 applications for vocational licences in just 25 working days. It may take longer to process cases where medical investigations are needed.

On 15 November, legislation came into force to remove the requirement for HGV drivers to obtain entitlement to drive rigid lorries before being able to take a test to drive articulated lorries. This has streamlined the licensing process with the aim of getting fully qualified HGV drivers on the road as soon as possible.

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