Richard Arkless – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Transport

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Richard Arkless on 2015-12-10.

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what plans his Department has to encourage an increase in the number of HGV drivers in the UK to meet demand for such drivers.

Andrew Jones

The Department’s agencies are taking action on HGV driver testing and licensing. This includes recruiting 78 new driving examiners, as well as 65 in training and 41 offered posts. Licence renewal times where there are not medical issues have reduced and changes are being made to the operation of parts of the medical renewals process. The Department is working with other parts of Government to encourage and enable more people to become lorry drivers, including via apprenticeships and action related to Jobcentre Plus.

I note that over 55,000 tests were conducted in 2014-15, the highest total since 2008-09. Further, the number of Large Goods Vehicle practical and theory tests of all types conducted during July to September 2015 was 34 per cent higher than in the same quarter of 2014.