Transport Select Committee

Oral evidence: Road haulage sector: Skills and workforce planning, HC 517

Monday 1 February 2016

Ordered by the House of Commons to be published on 1 February 2016.

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Members present: Mrs Louise Ellman (Chair), Mary Glindon, Karl McCartney, Stewart Malcolm McDonald, Mark Menzies, Huw Merriman, Will Quince, Iain Stewart, Graham Stringer, Martin Vickers

Questions 53-148

Examination of Witnesses

Witnesses: Adrian Jones, National Officer for Road Transport and Logistics, Unite the Union, and Jolyon Drury, Chair of the CILT Public Policies Committee, Chartered Institute of Logistics and Transport, gave evidence.

Q53   Chair: Welcome to the Transport Select Committee. I would like to make a declaration that I am a member of Unite. Would you please tell us your name and organisation?

Jolyon Drury: I am Jolyon Drury from the Chartered Institute of Logistics and Transport.

Adrian Jones: I am Adrian Jones, a national officer with Unite the Union.

Q54   Chair: Thank you. What evidence is there of a driver shortage? Is it getting better or worse?

Adrian Jones: It is certainly worse. Our members are perversely seeing increasing job availability, and employers we have relations with are reporting real problems with recruiting and retaining qualified, skilled and experienced drivers. There are exceptions to that rule in some of the specialist transport industries; CILT and RHA research estimates a driver shortage nationally of anything around the 50,000 mark. It is not just a UK issue; it is a global issue as well. It is seen in the industry as something that has been allowed to perpetuate until we are in the situation that we are.

Q55   Chair: You spoke about recruitment and retention. Is the problem about there not being enough qualified drivers or is it that they do not stay—they want to leave the industry?

Adrian Jones: There are not enough people coming into the industry. There are certainly not enough young people coming into the industry. It is not seen as attractive. The industry is certainly not as diverse as we believe it should be with regard to gender and ethnicity. There are significant numbers of drivers, from DVLA’s own figures, showing that there are licence holders out there and people who have passed their certificate of professional competence but they are just not in the industry. There can be any number of reasons for that. Predominantly, our members see unsocial working patterns, long hours, spending a long time away from home and not having the ability to plan and to make domestic arrangements, and so on, as well as the fact that the terms and conditions and pay associated with the job are not where they once were. Certainly in comparison with other jobs that require a similar amount of training, experience and accreditation, it is well below where our members believe it should be in order to recognise the professionalism of the job.

Q56   Chair: Mr Drury, do you agree with what you have just heard?

Jolyon Drury: Yes, I do.

Q57   Chair: Is there anything you would like to add?

Jolyon Drury: We did our own survey and found that driver conditions, as well as pay, were one of the main reasons why there isn’t take-up for the younger age group, which of course we would like to address. We also found that the majority of heavy goods vehicle drivers are over 50, and we are therefore very concerned that as the age moves on in the next five years we will not have anybody to replace the natural wastage.

Q58   Chair: Is this a UK problem or a European problem?

Jolyon Drury: It is an EU problem.

Adrian Jones: There is anecdotal evidence as well. I was reading some reports from New Zealand last week where there is similar evidence-gathering going on. In the United States, there is again a shortage of qualified and experienced drivers. A lot of the trends that have just been referred to with regard to age, profile, and so on, are very similar globally.

Q59   Chair: Is there an issue with recruiting foreign drivers to meet the shortfall?

Adrian Jones: The short-term response over the last few years has been that transport companies have recruited drivers from eastern Europe particularly. There are no major issues with that as long as those drivers are coming in with the proper facilities that have been referred to, as well as having the appropriate terms and conditions. That has not been the case, and certainly agency labour providers in road transport have brought drivers in from Europe and not provided proper facilities. They have not provided proper accommodation, for example, and expect them to spend their weekly rest in the cab, which is not just unacceptable but in breach of the European regulations. They also undercut the rates for the job in the UK, and that has clearly been something that a lot of our members, and drivers generally, have seen as a real threat that has not been dealt with appropriately.

Q60   Iain Stewart: Following on from that, I have been approached by a constituent who has 42 years in the haulage and logistics industry. His analysis is that many drivers are exhausted and stressed because the number of hours they are required to put in is greater than the maximum that is legally allowed when you add things like availability periods, loading and unloading systems, and tighter delivery schedules. When I put this question to the hauliers a couple of weeks ago they suggested that it was not an issue. I would be grateful for your response to the situation of my constituent.

Adrian Jones: Your constituent’s comments are exactly in line with what we see, and it is in large and small transport companies; it is not just the cowboys, if I can use that phrase. The regulations for drivers are pretty clear. There is an average of 48 hours per week, but that does not prevent drivers working extremely long hours as well as overnighting in vehicles rather than in suitable facilities. As you rightly pointed out, there are also the periods of availability, which in effect elongate the working day and are, on some occasions, being exploited. There is one company that I have had the misfortune to deal with where drivers were threatened with disciplinary action if they did not book enough periods of availability to elongate their day. That is clearly a perversion of what the regulations should be, which is to protect the safety of professional drivers and other road users. It is absolutely spot-on.

Q61   Iain Stewart: Mr Drury, do you have any comments?

Jolyon Drury: Yes. That is why we are trying to address the issue through the corporate social responsibility agenda, to get it built into supply chain contracts by the shippers, who are ultimately responsible for setting the rules. I am not in disagreement at all with what my colleague said, but rules are being interpreted very liberally and, with the European working time directive as well as the electronic tachographs, you have to interpret it liberally if you are not to break the law. Actually, you are breaking the law, and, by approaching it through ourselves and the Chartered Institute of Purchasing and Supply, we are trying to get it built in at senior management level so that there is no excuse for it.

Q62   Iain Stewart: Is the problem increasing in its instances at the moment? Because there is a comparative shortage of drivers coming forward, do employers think they can exert more pressure on their existing drivers and there is a vicious circle?

Adrian Jones: I think that is the case. I could not honestly say that I have seen a marked increase, but certainly with the implementation of regulations that are designed to ensure that the working week is not too long, employers see that as a target rather than a maximum. If it is a 48-hour average or a 60-hour average in a week, they say, “We can work you 60 hours this week”—or over the reference period—or, “We need to get 48 hours out of you,” rather than looking at what is genuinely an appropriate and socially acceptable working week. We are talking about people whose livelihoods are regulated very highly, as Jolyon said, by the tachograph rules and EU rules. We have enforcement officers left, right and centre. Drivers need to be aware of infringements and all the regulations with regard to load safety, and so on, in addition to the rules of the road that, as a car driver, I also have to follow. It is an extremely stressful job in the first place. On top of that, you have the technological advances in monitoring—cameras in cabs and telematics. I was talking to a driver on the gate of a distribution site when all of a sudden there was a crackle and a voice came on, “Why aren’t you moving?” That was in a matter of seconds. It is all part of the package that drivers face in the 21st century. There needs to be fundamental change, and we have some real ideas about what needs to be changed to address it.

Q63   Chair: Is it the rules or how the rules are operated? We were told in our last session, when we were talking about the number of hours that drivers worked, that there were rules and people could not exceed certain hours. It seems to me that that is not quite how it works out.

Adrian Jones: The rules are quite explicit. The level of enforcement is not what we would like to see. There is not enough consistent enforcement or wide enough enforcement, due to financial cutbacks in the enforcement agencies and authorities. It is interpretation of the rules. I concede that there are sometimes conflicts between tachograph rules and working time, especially around breaks—when breaks need to be taken and after what period of driving—and that can be quite difficult to manage and juggle. Certainly the pressure on drivers, whether it be in general haulage or more specialist haulage, is to maximise the hours, if not above and beyond.

Jolyon Drury: One of the factors is the tremendous increase in tempo that we have seen in the last five years, with the change in logistics practices, home shopping and much more external supply; 45% of our food comes in on wheels from the EU. With timed deliveries to distribution centres, which are generally honoured but sometimes are not, in parallel with hold-ups in the ports, particularly in the last 18 months, and with telematics and electronic tachographs, the driver has very little flexibility. One can understand how the increase in tempo then affects the management of the large distribution centres, because so much work has to be done. The synthetics that we used to do as transportation planners assumed a turnover in an old distribution warehouse of about six times a year. We now have a turnover approximately three times that and sometimes faster, so the whole thing has a multiplying effect through the business.

Q64   Chair: How much are the changes you described responsible for the problems in recruitment or retention? Is it significant?

Jolyon Drury: They are significant and they are right across the EU. Younger drivers and potential drivers are not coming into the business because of the pressures, both on hours and from monitoring the hours. It is also because of the poor rest conditions. Nowadays in an industrial estate in excess of 1.5 million square feet, you are working, compared with five years ago, on turnover on a factor of five—in excess of 500 or 600 lorry movements a day—and you can pretty well say that 25% of those will need somewhere to park and overlay quite close; and the provision just is not there.

Q65   Chair: How do the agency and zero-hours contracts systems work?

Adrian Jones: There are examples of drivers on zero-hours contracts. I was talking to some at a motorway service station a couple of weeks ago. A lot of hauliers and transport companies roll out peaks and troughs, and that is a real challenge for them, especially in retail logistics where seasonal peaks mean that they need more workers at certain times and fewer at others. There is a high proportion of agency workers in transport, both in driving and in warehousing and other logistics roles. Within driving there is a real issue of drivers being recruited by agencies and told they need to be “self-employed”, so they do not really have an employer. That seems to be more and more prevalent in the industry. In essence, drivers are being told that they are legally responsible for themselves, but they have very little or no say in the work they do and the conditions they are affected by.

Q66   Stewart Malcolm McDonald: When you talked about the recruitment shortage you mentioned the EU. What about other parts of the world? Is anywhere getting this right? Are there any countries from which we can learn that have responded to the recruitment shortage?

Jolyon Drury: That is a good question. I cannot answer it.

Adrian Jones: I cannot think of any examples.

Q67   Stewart Malcolm McDonald: Is the shortage in this country across the board? Is it more or less pronounced in different parts of the UK?

Jolyon Drury: We have a shortage in the passenger transport industry as well, but perhaps not quite as great. It is generally for the same reasons: driver conditions and pay, and availability. One of the areas that possibly needs to be discussed is apprenticeships and how we get young people into the industry. You can kick me if I am wrong, but it has an awful public image at the moment and we really have to get that right. We certainly, in CILT, are approaching that by educating through schools and having what is known as a Warehouse to Wheels programme so that you have the right sort of selection and recruitment for people who will be both enthusiastic and suitable for driving. There is no point in frightening somebody with a large truck who really does not want to do it. I go to the far east quite a lot, and I could answer your question anecdotally by saying that I have not noticed a shortage, just because the labour pool is so huge.

Q68   Chair: How common is it for drivers to have to be in vehicles overnight?

Adrian Jones: Very common. There are a lot of different specialisms within transport. It is perhaps not as prevalent in general retail haulage, but when you are restricted with speed and driving hours, and your pay load needs to be from A to B, there need to be opportunities for drivers to take their breaks. One of the big factors that employers are trying to manage out of the industry is empty running—when a truck is delivering fresh air, in essence, and there is nothing paying for those miles. That means you will be moving from A to B with a load, and then going somewhere else, to C, to pick up a load to take back, so time-sensitive deliveries require the driver to be in excess of their daily driving hours, which means that they stay out overnight. While there are advances in cab design and the creature comforts in a cab, it is a workplace. It is not a luxury holiday home. It is not a hotel room, as I had one employer try to convince me last year. It is a workplace. It does not have adequate washing facilities. It does not have toilet facilities. The tax regulations restrict the amount an employer can give an employee to spend on overnights before being taxed. Even when that is the case, many drivers choose to stay in their cabs simply because the £25 a night they get from the employer bolsters their weekly earnings. They are staying in a cab in a lay-by with no toilet or washing facilities and nowhere for them to get a proper meal or any exercise. Do not forget that these are drivers who are moving food, clothing and medical supplies. We have to ask ourselves why we allow this to happen. I would not accept sleeping in my workplace and having to wash and do all the natural things that we need to do as human beings in my workplace. Why should we expect professional drivers to do that?

Q69   Chair: What should be done?

Adrian Jones: There are some very simple things that we think can be done. First of all, when a driver is delivering to point A, that employer should be obliged to make visiting drivers welcome and able to use facilities. We have seen appalling examples of signs up saying “Drivers not allowed to use the canteen.” “No toilets here for drivers. Use the Asda or the Tesco down the road.” When you are driving a 40-foot truck, you cannot get into Tesco’s car park. It is not that simple, and it is an absolute disgrace.

              We believe there is an opportunity, as Jolyon mentioned, in distribution parks. Millions and millions of square feet of warehousing is going up. When a driver comes in, the footprint for the yard is reduced because that costs money, so there is nowhere for the drivers to park. The port of Liverpool is a fantastic investment and a fantastic development for the UK. The turnaround time there is said to be 17 minutes, in and out of the gate. When we challenged Peel Ports over what happens when drivers need their regulatory break, they said, “Not our problem. They can park up on the road outside.” That is unacceptable.

              We believe that planning laws could be changed so that distribution parks over a certain size would have to have a development for secure parking with appropriate facilities for drivers. That could be funded by the employers who take up residence on those parks, through a service charge. It is common in blocks of flats and apartments; you pay a service charge. Why can’t companies that take up residence in those distribution parks pay for their drivers to be properly rested in secure, safe and clean appropriate facilities? That is a real opportunity for Government to take a step forward.

Jolyon Drury: I do not want you to underestimate the public health problem in the lack of sanitary facilities very close to residential communities. At the moment the only place people park is in lay-bys, many of them very close to residential communities, and there is a serious public health problem. Also, because of the way logistics works, trailers are swapped; somebody doing a northern leg swaps trailers with somebody doing a southern leg. That is all good cost-sensitive stuff.

              The other problem we have with residential communities is security. There is pilferage. There is also the noisier end of refrigerated trailers, which run all night, particularly if you have a cold store depot quite close to the residential communities. It all militates towards getting proper truck stop facilities where the hotspots are.

Q70   Martin Vickers: Mr Jones, in your last answer you said perhaps there was a role for Government action. What response have you had from the various Government Departments in your discussions with them?

Adrian Jones: Very briefly it is “Talk to someone else.” The Government’s role in trying to address the driver shortage has been slim to nil. The sector skills council, as you will be aware, closed down last year through insufficient funding when it was moved to charitable status, so there is no sector skills council. The trade organisations are looking to establish something—fair play to CILT, the FTA and RHA—but there is no central Government role in addressing an absolutely key skills shortage in the UK. That is an absolute disgrace, in my opinion.

              Government can have a role to play in appropriate enforcement to make sure that people are running straight and are not exceeding the regulations. Things like the road user levy, which has been extremely successful in its implementation and has brought in—off the top of my heard—£192 million, are not ring-fenced for transport. People say that there is no money for developing proper truck stops and parking facilities, but there is a hell of a lot of new money coming into the industry, predominantly from foreign trucks coming into the UK, that could be used for the betterment of the transport industry. There is a real challenge to Government to step up and take it seriously. Everything in this room will have been on a truck at some point—everything. If the industry is not important, I am not sure what is.

Q71   Martin Vickers: Mr Drury, have you found a similarly negative response from Government?

Jolyon Drury: I would like to make it more positive than that, by saying that section 106 agreements in development could be made to part-finance truck stop facilities. My colleagues in the development industry are getting away comparatively easily at the moment. An issue that I am personally familiar with is that there are insufficient skills left in the boroughs, in the planning departments, to judge the scale of the developments they are being faced with. They provide employment; a lot of the distribution centres, with value-added services, produce nearly the same employment as light industrial does now, so there is a big incentive for them to be built for the area, but unlike housing developments nobody really approaches the 106 agreements to provide additional facilities. In terms of hypothecation of the highways levy, that would be extremely useful in pump-priming a few of the apprenticeships.

Q72   Chair: Have you ever specifically raised that with Government?

Jolyon Drury: I am an Ashford resident and I have raised it with my MP.

Chair: That’s the way to do it.

Q73   Mark Menzies: On the subject of how we make careers in distribution and logistics interesting and attractive to retain people, in reply to the question from the Chair a few minutes ago, we touched on the issue of zero-hours contracts. I would like to explore that. Are we seeing an increase in the numbers of people being pushed from working as an employee of a company towards being self-employed? Are we seeing a clear trend in that happening?

Adrian Jones: Yes, I believe so.

Q74   Mark Menzies: Are small companies doing that, or is it big organisations that most of us would tend to recognise?

Adrian Jones: The experience of Unite and our members is that that angle is used predominantly through agencies and labour providers. The big hauliers and retailers that run their own transport tend to offer better terms and conditions, because they want to retain the commitment of the drivers, and they are associated with that employee or driver. When an agency provider is asked to find drivers, and there is a shortage, they need to look at ways of encouraging people to come into the industry.

              I have spoken to drivers who said, “I have gone self-employed because it means I get an extra 10 grand a year.” The hourly rate is higher, but if you are self-employed where does the hourly rate calculation come in? You are either on an hourly rate and contracted or you are self-employed. Their national insurance, tax and all the rest of the costs come as a big shock. They do not get sick pay or holidays. That is seen as a bit of a surprise, but the short-term gain is seen to be the increase in pay.

Q75   Mark Menzies: Staying on that theme, the consequences for a driver would be no sick pay or holiday pay, and basically they would have to find their own pension provision because the employer would be able to opt out of that. There are no employer’s national insurance contributions. In terms of insuring the vehicle, where would that liability sit—with the owner or the self-employed driver?

Adrian Jones: Vehicles can, in essence, be leased to the driver. The driver is the business and the truck is supplied by the customer of the agency; for example, going to Adrian Jones Retailer Ltd, you could drive Adrian Jones Ltd’s truck. There is a question about operator licences. Anybody who works in the industry and operates vehicles should hold an operator’s licence. There is a bit of a grey area as to whether a self-employed owner-operator needs an operator’s licence and whether a self-employed driver through an agency needs an operator’s licence. There is some confusion.

Q76   Mark Menzies: Jumping to the zero-hours contract state of things, the Chair mentioned that we are seeing an increase in the number of overnight stays. There is a clear trend that way. If a driver on a zero-hours contract is required to stay overnight in their cab, would they be paid for the duration of that overnight stay or would the employer say, “You parked up at eight o’clock and therefore you will not get paid until you start moving again at 7 am,” or whatever?

Adrian Jones: It is an interesting concept about employers paying for the time when a driver is in their cab. That is not a zero-hours issue; that is a driver issue. If you are a driver for a major UK haulier and you overnight in your cab, the only pay you get will be £25 or £30. You are not paid for that time. You are not paid for the 11 hours or nine hours on a reduced break. The regulations say that you should be free to dispose of your time, whether it be on your 45-minute regulatory break or your overnight 11 hours or nine hours. In essence, you are an unpaid security guard for your vehicle. You have nowhere else to go and you are sleeping in it. You are watching DVDs on the internet in it. You are an unpaid security guard. You are not paid for that time at all. That is not a zero-hours issue; it is a driver issue.

Q77   Chair: Does that apply to everyone?

Adrian Jones: I cannot think of a single example of a driver being paid for their time spent overnight in a truck—not a single example.

Q78   Mark Menzies: Drivers are reasonably well paid compared with some other sectors, but does it ever get to a point where, if you take that overnight time into account and it is multiplied over the course of a week, you could find a driver getting close to falling below the minimum wage?

Adrian Jones: I was talking to a driver this morning who left home yesterday. He started work this morning and will not get home until Friday night or Saturday morning. He does not return home for the entire week; he has one or two nights a week at home. I question and challenge the comment about reasonably well paid when you consider that example and the fact that that driver has had to go through all the tests and qualifications just to be out on the road and to hold his standard licence and professional licence. He has had to go through his CPC training and all the other challenges that he then has. You say that drivers are relatively well paid, but generally rates of pay for class 1 professional drivers in this country are far too low.

Q79   Mark Menzies: I have a final question on this point. Has Unite the Union ever taken up any legal cases where drivers are working the clock time, and then the parking up and what companies might class as a driver’s own time? Clearly, in my view, if you are stuck in a cab in Wolverhampton and you live in Newcastle, and it is 10 hours in the cab, I would expect some recompense from the company—more than £25 or whatever.

Adrian Jones: We have not, because, legally, that is not classed as working time. It would be an interesting challenge and I will speak to our legal director tomorrow to see if we can have a punt on it. What you have just said, Mr Menzies, is why people are not coming into the industry. You would expect some recompense for time spent away from your friends, family and home. Why aren’t people coming into the industry when faced with that?

Q80   Mark Menzies: I am a Tory MP, so I do not want to be accused of encouraging militancy, but—

Adrian Jones: Unite is far from a militant organisation, Mr Menzies.

Mark Menzies: I think it is a perfectly reasonable question that Unite should be asking.

Jolyon Drury: I would like to add something. It is an industry with very low margins. We have a particular problem with our SMEs keeping up. We think we have about 40,000 EU co-workers filling the vacuum at the moment in the UK, with about 12,000 EU-registered trucks on cabotage in the UK filling up the lower end of the cost bracket for haulage. Again, I have personal experience of our EU drivers on very low wages who elect to spend the weekend in the UK because the mainland is so dangerous for them at the moment. This is entirely anecdotal. A driver I talked to recently was only earning €300 a month as a teacher in Romania and was pleased to get €300 a week from a UK haulage company. Because they do not have anywhere secure to park or any facilities, they make do and mend in groups. Frankly, it is like a scout camp. They cook in trailers with the customers’ loads with the doors open. It is just not a way to live. If young people see that going on, they are certainly not going to join the industry.

Q81   Stewart Malcolm McDonald: I am so sad to hear that my fellow Scot has lost his militant tendency, but there we go. Lots of the stuff you have just outlined is pretty horrifying. Some of it should be relatively easy to fix. I do not see why Asda cannot let a driver use the canteen, and I would really love to hear a wee bit more about that outwith this session. The stuff you have just outlined about conditions, pay and all the rest of it means it is now the No. 1 industry I never want to work in. What would you say should be the headline three things that you would want changed in order to change the perception and the conditions of the industry?

Adrian Jones: Number one would be work-life balance and long hours. Number two would be facilities—for drivers to be able to access proper and secure facilities. The third would be career progression. When young people come into the industry to become drivers, they want to be drivers. The only career progression once you are a class 1 driver is into the traffic office or some managerial role. If I am in my mid to late 20s as a young entrant to the industry, I want to drive for a living; that is why I have spent three grand getting a licence. I want to drive. My career is not in an office; I do not want to do that. There are opportunities in companies to offer more advanced training for drivers, for example, and to look at diversifying into other things. Not all hauliers have the opportunity, but there are specialist jobs out there downstream in oil distribution and petrol tankers, for example, whether it be in low loaders, heavy haulage or car distribution. There are specialisms that create new challenges for drivers. It would be those three things, as well as proper recompense and recognition for the work that drivers do in this country.

Q82   Stewart Malcolm McDonald: I am genuinely not fishing here, but do you get a different reception from the Scottish Government than from the UK Government?

Adrian Jones: No.

Q83   Chair: We will move quickly on. We keep hearing about the very tight margins in the sector. Why don’t hauliers raise their prices?

Jolyon Drury: The European supply chain industry, of which we are a major part, is a victim of its own success. It was asked by the Commission five years ago to dramatically cut emissions, and part of making that emission cut is minimising empty running. There was a meeting in Brussels about three years ago—I sit on the European Logistics Association for CILT—where the Competition Commission and the Environment Commission were across a table from each other. It was established that it is not anti-competitive if you work at a technical level and run what we call white trailers, which are third-party service providers’ trailers, even working for competitors. Anecdotally, between a fifth and a quarter tonne-kilometres have now been saved, so there is a serious emissions reduction. Because of that, the whole tempo has gone up, as I was explaining earlier. The margins of the logistics area, rather than the manufacturing area, have been put under a great deal of pressure—let’s put it that way. The Euro 6 technology means you have to spend money on the vehicles. They are asking for the same technology to go into refrigerated vehicles because it has just been seen that emissions from refrigerated trailers have not been picked up. The bit that has suffered is wages, which have gone further and further down the line. One of the reasons why we see so many accession states, as we used to call them—they are now members of the 27—is that their wages are so low and they do not have pension conditions like ours. Again, anecdotally, the level to which their training aspires is not the same as ours. They have an uncompetitive advantage, which is why we must get our apprenticeships in place.

Q84   Chair: What about the role of the supermarkets, for example?

Adrian Jones: I won’t single out supermarkets, but retail distribution in itself is quite a challenge. Even the largest retailers are always looking to reduce costs. Transport is seen to be an on-cost and not core business for them. One national retailer recently said, “We are not a haulier.” They are looking to outsource their in-house transport functions to a third party logistics operator—a 3PL. They have chosen a 3PL simply on the basis of price. It is all about price.

              A couple of years ago a manufacturer held a Dutch auction for their finished goods transport operation. They got all the hauliers into different rooms in a football stadium to see which one would say yes at the lowest possible price. It is an absolute disgrace. I understand from a haulier’s position that to keep contracts, to keep work coming in and to keep our drivers in work, they need contracts with manufacturers, retailers and importers. But the contract comes up for renewal, and the manufacturer or the retailer says, “There’s your contract; you can have it for 18 months.” You cannot plan on an 18-month contract. When they offer it for 18 months and say, “We want a 7% or 5% reduction in the last term,” that is unsustainable. There is a real challenge for what we term the economic employer in third party logistics and their responsibility for ensuring that there is a safe rate on a contract, which means that hauliers can pay their drivers a rate and can manage hours appropriately, because that increases the cost. When it is driven by the manufacturers and by the retailers, hauliers face extremely difficult challenges, and there are slim margins. One of the other issues that employers have raised with us is the turnaround time on contracts. When contracts are awarded, there is very little time for them to prepare for a TUPE transfer, for example. There are lots of challenges. I accept that, and Unite works with employers to try to meet them, but we need real responsibility to be put on the economic employers to ensure that there are safe rates for hauliers to pay their drivers and staff.

Q85   Iain Stewart: I have a follow-up question on the drive to reduce emissions and also to make the sector as efficient as possible. How well is training done to encourage drivers to drive as efficiently as possible on the road, with the ideal braking distance, acceleration and all that sort of thing? Is there a good standard across the industry or could more be done in that field?

Jolyon Drury: The major logistics companies have very comprehensive training programmes in place. They train drivers from youth right the way through and they are examples to us all. The telematics in cabs now monitor a driver’s performance. As long as you are accredited coming through the training process, given time to familiarise yourself with the vehicle type that you have chosen to drive and are on telematics that record the management of your vehicle, there is no reason why an 18-year-old should not progress through the industry with the largest type of vehicle. However, when you get to the level of SMEs and below, they try really hard—there is no criticism in this—but time is too short. There are training schemes; CILT is pursuing training schemes. In your second session there are a number of witnesses who will tell you about training schemes on the ground, as it were, but they are expensive. One of the bars to recruitment at the moment is having to pay between £3,000 and £5,000 as a 19-year-old, unsupported by a grant, to try to educate yourself to be a driver.

Q86   Huw Merriman: My question is about how the market works. I have a lot of care homes in my constituency and they are struggling for staff too. Their difficulty is that the ultimate cheque writer is the local authority, whereas here the ultimate cheque writers are the large companies that are having their goods distributed. If the picture is as bleak as you are leading us to believe, would it not be the case that the goods would not arrive and therefore those organisations would have to pay more? You could pay higher wages and you would get more entrants into the market, so wouldn’t the market in a private system like this correct it, if there is such a big problem?

Jolyon Drury: I will try to be very brief. We enjoy our cheap food and cheap commodity tradition in this country. Doubtless we could raise everything by 5% really easily and have good conditions. I was a witness at the last session, and the care home analogy struck home with me and I thought about it. CILT are looking to their corporate finance members and corporate insurance members to see if there is a way we can get a grant structure going, perhaps through loans, within our membership in order to get over the training and apprenticeship problem. I understand the magnitude of the care home industry issue, but ours is hot on its heels. Just as care homes are filling their staff with European co-workers and beyond, so are we. It is a major parallel quality issue.

Q87   Huw Merriman: My point was that to a certain extent, this being a private set-up, one would expect the market to deal with it. I agree with you, and no doubt the Dutch auction is an example where providers will be skewed down on the price, but ultimately companies that rely on the industry will not let it get so bad that their goods do not arrive; or, if they do, they will go out of business. There will come a point in time when there is, if you like, a market price, surely.

Jolyon Drury: We are getting the kickback now from the Calais situation, where certainly the chilled industry has been losing millions a week. I think it was £20 million during the bad period in July last year. I am not an economist, but it is going to be quite competitive, I suggest, between our big four, which will further depress the transport costs. I will not mention the names of the particular big retailers, but it is extremely competitive. There will be enormous pressure on our industry not to put any prices up.

Adrian Jones: There needs to be recognition that this is not just about retailers, high street stores or supermarkets; it is everything from desks to carpets to pictures and lights. Everything has been transported by road at some point. I am quite happy to have a discussion about market economics and the free market, and whether that is a good or a bad thing. You can probably guess what my angle would be. The real picture is not that wages are increasing exponentially at the moment. Agencies have absolutely had to increase costs, because the free agents, as it were—the drivers that agencies are looking to place with customers—are at a premium. Agency rates are now higher than a core driver’s rate. A driver who is employed by a manufacturer or a retailer is paid less per hour than an agency or a bogus self-employed driver.

              Are rates for goods going up? I can only agree that we all like a cheap glass of water and cheap products in the shops. We like cheap cars. We like cheap beds. We do not want to spend more than we have to. Ultimately, there would have to be a revolution in things not being delivered and there would need to be a change. We do not want to see that happen. We want to see people brought into the industry. We want the industry to recognise that there is a real opportunity to diversify in recruiting drivers. Last year, a high street retailer was losing two drivers in a relatively small depot. They were retiring. They had done enough and they did not want to work the long hours. I spoke to the retailer and said, “Neither of them actually wants to leave. They enjoy the job, but they just don’t want to work the hours.” I came up with the absolutely astounding idea of a job share, with all that experience and all that commitment. “Oh, we don’t do that. It’s too difficult to manage because the vehicle has to do that.” Drivers are classed as a labourer with a licence. We must break the circle of hauliers and transport companies viewing drivers as that, and then those companies themselves, if they are working as a third or fourth party logistics operator, being held almost to ransom by the economic employer. Yes, I accept that that could come, but we think a lot can be done to change the view and perception of the industry, the working conditions and the pay associated with the profession, as well as the wider economics of providing safe rates from the economic employer.

Q88   Chair: What changes would you like to see in training schemes?

Adrian Jones: Unite does not necessarily agree with the proposal for student grants or student loan-type arrangements for drivers to pay back through taxation. We believe that that will drive down pay and conditions, because drivers will not want to work above the tax thresholds to pay it back. We see that as a negative. We think there is an opportunity for bringing people into the industry. Many employers already have training agreements that bring new people into the industry. The employer funds the training and gets the licence, and it is paid back directly through wages over a period of time, but you are going into an already established job and you have a relationship with the employer.

              The driver CPC, which in principle we absolutely welcome to professionalise the industry, is seen by many as a complete waste of time. You have had to go through five seven-hour sessions to be able to work in the industry, yet you could go through the same seven-hour session five times and still get your CPC at the end of it. It makes nonsense of it. Our members have clearly said that there needs to be more regulation and having something that is genuinely worth getting. There needs to be accountability—not necessarily a strict exam at the end of the training, but certainly something that means that you have had a level of training, that you understand it and that it is relevant to the job you are doing. Driving jobs can be very varied—from someone who goes from distribution centre to distribution centre and sits at 56 mph for hour after hour, to someone delivering in the centre of London who has very different challenges. There are real opportunities in the CPC. Good apprenticeships are an excellent vehicle for bringing young people into the industry if they are done properly and there is a proper career progression associated with them.

Q89   Chair: Should the Department for Transport be more responsible for training apprenticeships?

Adrian Jones: In our opinion, yes. This is where we are faced with challenges, with the Department for Transport saying, “No, that’s the Department for Education. No, that’s a BIS issue. No, that’s a Department for Transport issue.” It is like some satnavs; you just go round and round in circles and nobody takes responsibility for it.

Q90   Chair: Is there an issue about the cost of a licence?

Adrian Jones: There is an issue about the cost of a licence, as Jolyon said. You are talking about between £3,000 and £5,000 just to get into the industry. Then you have no live experience. It is a real challenge. Who is going to do that when they are faced with spending nine or 11 hours sleeping in a tin box with no recompense and they are not going to get home to see their family?

Q91   Chair: We hear a lot about Warehouse to Wheels schemes. How important are they?

Adrian Jones: I think they are fantastic. They can be really useful.

Q92   Chair: Do they work?

Adrian Jones: A lot of drivers enter the industry through the warehouse. We love a little bit of alliteration. We are looking at “Admin to Artics”. We are not just looking at warehouses; we are looking at offices. I challenged a national retailer recently: “You’ve got 800 people working in your head office. How many of them have you approached to even think about it? Ask them, ‘Would you be prepared? Would you be interested? If not, why not?’” Look at that career progression. There are opportunities. There is some potential for exploitation in the Warehouse to Wheels project. I have seen one example where it is not a permanent move from the warehouse, so that they go into the driving pool and are a permanent driver: “You are a warehouse worker, you’ve been trained up and when we need you we’ll drag you out.” That undermines the professionalism and skills needed. When people are pulled in that way it is not an appropriate way of using that kind of initiative.

Q93   Chair: Mr Drury, do you agree with what you have heard or is there anything different you would like to say?

Jolyon Drury: Yes, although I would like to expand it slightly. There are analogies with the passenger industry, where somebody who started in a bus garage ended up as the main commissioner for London. There is a career progression in the transport and logistics industry by raising the quality bar. Certainly the major groups and the major retailers, not just in food but particularly in the hardware industry and furniture, have career generation schemes. They make sure that if you are working on the retail outlet floor you spend some time in the out-of-town stockroom known as the warehouse, some of it driving and some of it doing home delivery, so that you get a whole panoply of work and can choose which suits you best as your career progresses. We would very much support that right through the industry. You need to start it at school level. One of the reasons we are not getting recruits is that parents think it is a dirty industry. We have to get hearts and minds by demonstrating both that there is career progression and that there are good working conditions.

Q94   Will Quince: I want to pick up a couple of points. First, in relation to full-time versus agency staff I understand the point you are making, but there are lots of industries in this country where agency staff salaries have overtaken those of full-timers. There is a very good reason for that. It is because you do not get consistency or certainty of work, or the benefits that you would usually get from full-time employment. I am interested in the point you are making about that. Take the NHS or any public sector organisation. It is very common for agency staff to be paid more than full-time staff for lots of reasons, some good and some bad. Some of it is down to supply.

              The second point I would like to ask about is in relation to what you said about a Dutch auction. I can understand why more and more companies are moving away from doing their own distribution and getting a third party to do it. It is partly to do with costs, but also because they can transfer it to an organisation that has expertise in that area, and therefore outsource it. You said the Dutch auction process was a disgrace. Putting aside potential ideological reasons, why do you say it is a disgrace? Surely for anybody trying to get the best value for their customers, or indeed the best product mix in terms of the outcome they are looking for, that is exactly what they should do?

Adrian Jones: You have hit the nail on the head: best value. The lowest price is not the best value. It was solely around price. Yes, the criteria for the contract had been set out and the hauliers had chosen to be in that environment, but some of those companies were relatively small, perhaps with a couple of dozen drivers. We are not talking about massive companies in this particular example. The loss of the contract, or not winning some work, could mean the difference between that company surviving or not. They were under extreme pressure without any time to be able to reflect. It was going from room to room to room to see who would do the lowest price. That is not a consistent and sustainable way of running a transport environment. To go back to your colleague’s point, if that is the way the market is going, that is certainly in the wrong direction.

Q95   Will Quince: Mr Merriman raised a good point. He said that you can put whatever points you like around price, but ultimately fulfilment is the key. These organisations will switch to another supplier if that fulfilment is not being met. You can go into a supermarket and buy lots of different brands of beans. Yes, you can buy cheap beans or you can buy expensive beans but you are still going to get a tin of beans. The point I am making is that, if they are not going to get fulfilment, they will move to another supplier. The cost is clearly the variable factor. Yes, you might get more or less for that service, but they are still going to get a core level of service. That is surely what this is ultimately about—to deliver for their shareholders and for the consumer, who is ultimately going to pay the lowest price for their goods.

Adrian Jones: Absolutely. Shareholders or private companies are a slightly different issue. You are absolutely right, but when there are operators out there who deliberately run down terms and conditions in a race to the bottom to get the lowest possible price, when there are drivers who have gone through three to five grand’s worth of training and licence acquisition and are then on little more than minimum wage for driving a class 1 vehicle around the streets of the country, that is the wrong direction to go in. Do we really want the market to correct that? Do we want to wait for the point when you get the choice of no beans or no beans? That is not the issue.

Q96   Will Quince: But you will never ever get to that situation because the market will always adjust. It has to.

Adrian Jones: If that is the case, Chair, I will wait for the influx of new drivers to the industry when the hauliers and transport companies say, “Okay, this is now what we are doing.” There are hundreds, if not thousands, of transport companies. The majority of them are very small. Some of them are still family-owned companies. They are working extremely hard to survive. The margins from customers, manufacturers and retailers are extremely thin. In relation to variable overheads, fuel is about the same, trucks cost about the same and maintenance costs are about the same, as is insurance. All those overheads are roughly similar; obviously there is a scale. The variable is the driver’s terms and conditions. Pensions are pretty much at auto-enrolment level across the industry. There are some really good examples out there of half-decent pension schemes, but across the piece, not just in transport, we have seen pension schemes closing for financial reasons.

On the point about agencies, yes, I accept that in many industries agency workers may have higher rates of pay, to recognise, I hope, the insecurity and lack of other benefits, such as pensions and long-term security. But it undermines the industry when some agency suppliers, not all, exploit drivers by, in essence, giving them no choice but to be self-employed—in the very broadest possible sense, may I add—which then takes away the incentive of drivers to commit, and be committed, to a company. There are real challenges.

Q97   Will Quince: It does not quite fit, because we are being told across the industry that there is a massive shortage of drivers, and we all accept that. We have been told in other evidence sessions that drivers will switch for as little as 50p per hour. It comes back to the point around fulfilment—if an organisation is not fulfilling. Surely they are paying their staff an adequate amount, or an amount that would be deemed adequate by that staff member, or they would just move to another haulage company and the company would not be able to fulfil that contract. Do you see the point I am making?

Adrian Jones: I do, but there is a pool of drivers in this country—you heard evidence in the last session—which is reducing. I was talking to a director of a company today who argued quite vociferously that the rates he pays—even though he admitted himself, as a third-party logistics operator, that they are lower than those of the customers he works for—are okay because he does not have massive turnover of staff. That is fine if you want to manage decline, but there is absolutely no doubt that the industry is not recruiting new people and attracting new people across a diverse spectrum, for all the issues we have raised this afternoon.

Chair: We will have to leave the point at that juncture, although no doubt we will return to it. Thank you both very much.

Examination of Witnesses

Witnesses: Kat Springle, Operations Director, Easy as HGV, Nathalie Axon, Founder and Director, Horsepower Training Ltd, and Jenny Tipping, HGV Driver and Driver CPC Trainer, Manpower Logistics, gave evidence.

Q98   Chair: Good afternoon and welcome to the Transport Select Committee. I am sorry that we are a little later than planned, but I am sure you heard the interesting discussions we were having. Could you give us your name and company or organisation, please?

Nathalie Axon: I am Nathalie Axon from Horsepower.

Jenny Tipping: I am Jenny Tipping, HGV driver and CPC trainer for Manpower Logistics.

Kat Springle: I am Kat Springle from Easy as HGV, a nationwide HGV training provider.

Q99   Chair: I know you have been sitting in on this session so you heard all the things that have been said. Is there anything you are burning to say to us about the answers that you have heard from anyone?

Jenny Tipping: One thing I was particularly interested in was the discussion about improving facilities. There are two elements. Yes, it is important to provide and improve facilities for drivers, but if it was made a condition of planning applications, it would send a very clear message as to how valuable drivers are. That is something that needs to come out over and over again. We need to improve the perception, and anything statutory where it is made obvious just how important drivers are can only be a good thing for improving perception of the industry.

Q100   Chair: Are there any other points any of you want to make?

Kat Springle: The main point I would like to make picks up on something Mr Quince was saying—that eventually the industry would have to react because drivers would start to debate the fact that they were not being paid enough money. We believe we are already starting to see that. We have a positive approach from the drivers who come to us. Their perception of the industry is not declining wages, but that they are skilled and well trained and they are standing up for their right to earn more money. We see that time and time again with newly qualified drivers, who will wait for the right role.

Q101   Chair: Is the problem about driver recruitment and retention to do with the perception of the industry or is it to do with realities?

Kat Springle: We do nationwide HGV training, so we see drivers coming from car to HGV every single day. We are outputting about 300 newly qualified drivers every month. What we hear from our drivers, who are most likely to come from labouring or other blue collar roles where they may spend a lot of time outside in roles that are very demanding, is that their perception of the industry is not negative at all. That is not what we are seeing. We see an issue at the point at which the driver becomes ready for work, with the employer’s attitude to a newly qualified driver. That is where we believe the problem is.

Jenny Tipping: Labouring is the traditional pool you would expect a truck driver to come from, so the perception of the industry among other groups of people is probably putting them off. The perception of the industry is limiting the pool of people who are prepared to consider driving as a career. Once you are in the industry, the retention issue has more to do with conditions.

Q102   Chair: Ms Axon, in the written evidence you sent us you spoke about agency drivers and the way that large supermarkets, as you described them, worked in managed service agreements. Can you tell us a bit more about that and what the problem is?

Nathalie Axon: Yes. I feel that managed service providers such as de Poel are basically capping wages in the industry: for example, around £9.50 an hour on days and around £11 at night. Overtime is about £2 per hour more. It is disincentivising drivers who have been in the job for 20 or 30 years, who are agency workers, from going to work. There are a lot of people out there who have the licence and who are sick of the conditions at the moment.

Q103   Chair: Do they see the conditions changing for the worse?

Nathalie Axon: For the worse, without a doubt.

Q104   Chair: Do you think that is a big part of the current problem?

Nathalie Axon: I do. I truly believe that.

Q105   Mary Glindon: It is good to see three successful women sitting before the Committee today. I specifically want to ask why you think so few women get into the industry, bearing in mind all that has been said.

Nathalie Axon: There is a lack of role models, basically. They do not feel they belong. It is a bit like there being a herd of zebras and you being a gnu and not really fitting in. There need to be more gnus.

Jenny Tipping: Adrian Jones mentioned something about drivers coming in and seeing themselves as a driver. Historically, we have associated the trucker not just with a job but with an identity. If you do not fit that kind of identity, you are not going to see yourself in that job. Effectively, it is just a job like any other. It is a collection of skills and tasks and those tasks can be learned by anybody equally. We are all evidence of that. That needs to be put across. In any amount of education and language that comes out of whatever body, that is the way to make it clear. I still get so many comments suggesting the traditional view of a trucker: “You don’t fit the traditional view of a trucker.” Well, it is just a job.

Kat Springle: We have not come far away from most industries being male-dominated. I do not think that haulage is any different from any other industry, in that there are some employers who need educating about how to inspire women to take on certain roles. In terms of HGV driving in particular, Jenny is a great example of a female HGV driver who has enjoyed great success. We are in agreement that there is lack of education about the fact that these are not just great big lumbering vehicles that can only be driven by men. You have three licence holders in front of you. If there was more education for women or more messaging in the media for employers that women have the physical ability to drive those vehicles, potentially you would see more women in that line of work.

Q106   Mary Glindon: From your experience, and from what you are saying to the Committee, are there things that would help break down barriers for women who want to come into the industry? What can be done to give a more positive role of women in the industry?

Jenny Tipping: There is a new organisation being set up by a guy from Abbey Logistics called “Think Logistics”. The RHA, the FTA and the CILT are all on board with it. It is being swallowed up within Career Ready, so it is about going into schools, talking to people and running workshops on the logistics industry. They are actively looking for more people to go into schools who are not the traditional white, middle-aged bloke. Things are being done, but very slowly. Nathalie is doing stuff.

Nathalie Axon: We run taster days with hauliers and we get people into cabs. They fall in love and they want to drive; it is simple. People do not have the opportunity of getting into a truck, but once they do they see themselves as able to do that job.

Kat Springle: Sometimes there is an issue with funding for some of the initiatives that Jenny is talking about. For example, Skills for Logistics did something a few years ago called “Delivering your Future”, which was fantastic and aimed at young people in schools. It helped them to see it more as a career choice, but unfortunately it has not progressed. When the funding dries up for an initiative, it cannot go any further.

Jenny Tipping: The RHA has recently launched—the official launch is later this month—something called “She’s RHA.” That is a whole campaign. Things are being done but there is a long way to go.

Q107   Mary Glindon: As women in the industry, do you think you are treated any differently from your male colleagues? As women, are you treated differently from the vast majority of people in the industry?

Nathalie Axon: No, I do not think we are. I think we are treated just like men. We are not given any special treatment and we are not treated any worse.

Jenny Tipping: That is how I see it, yes.

Q108   Mark Menzies: On the point about getting more women into driving, the three of you have been here for about 10 minutes and you are impressive witnesses. Is there any evidence of women applying to work for haulage companies as drivers, and the minute the person sifting through the CVs realises they have a female driver, it goes in the bin?

Kat Springle: I have been speaking to a recruitment company we are working with to address some of the issues of the driver shortage. They asked me to contribute today. They work for their clients, and one of the issues they experience is that, if their client’s culture is that the client is not interested in having females driving their vehicles, in order to do a good job the recruiter will not put a woman’s CV in front of the client. In their efforts to impress the client, they will actually withhold a female’s CV.

Q109   Mark Menzies: Clearly that is wrong and illegal. If someone is good enough to do the job, they should be allowed to be processed. Thank you for raising that. Moving on, in terms of the role of driving an HGV—I am speaking now as a lay person—I have an image of its being physically demanding at times. When you are backing into a depot and you have roll cages, with the driver increasingly having responsibility for hauling off heavy roll cages or pallets, does any of that pose a physical barrier, or is it just not an issue?

Nathalie Axon: Women have always been involved in care-type roles. They have to lift 16-stone men, so we are actually quite strong. Most of the women are as strong as the guys. I have regularly pulled cages off for the Orange Supermarket. Sometimes you have cages full of booze and you think, “Perhaps they could have loaded it in two cages instead of one,” but I can ask somebody from the store to jump on board, if it is a rigid for example, to give me a hand.

Q110   Mark Menzies: It sounds as if the facilities for male drivers are inadequate, so if they are inadequate for male drivers, perhaps we have some way to go when it comes to women. Can you tell me a bit about your experiences when you have found yourself doing an overnight stop or a long-haul journey? What does that look like for you and how much of a deterrent could it be?

Nathalie Axon: I do not tend to stay out overnight, but in a 10 or 11-hour shift I frequently use the men’s loo because it is just quicker to get there than to be escorted across three buildings to get to a ladies. It is not in every situation, but when you are doing a store delivery you just go and use the ladies’ customer loos. If you are in one of the big meat producers, where typically all the drivers are men, there is one loo and it is obviously used by all the men. You have the choice of using it or waiting.

Jenny Tipping: It is very common, and it has happened to me on several occasions, that I have got somewhere at four o’clock in the morning and been told that the only ladies’ loo is two flights up and kept locked, and the only person who has a key is the woman who does accounts and she is not in until eight. That is very common. Either that or it is used as a cleaning cupboard. I must admit that I would choose clients on the basis of whether or not I had regular access to a loo that was right next to the men’s loo.

Q111   Mark Menzies: Do you have any thoughts, Ms Springle?

Kat Springle: I have no experience of that. I am in HGV training.

Q112   Mark Menzies: On the issue of diversity, getting more women involved is clearly a huge category. When we were doing an evidence session a few weeks ago we touched on the subject of ethnic minorities. There is an image of the industry being white male. What are we doing to try to make it ethnically diverse as well as gender diverse?

Jenny Tipping: The Warehouse to Wheels project has the best opportunity to address that one. In large numbers of warehouses, the majority are an ethnic minority, but then you go upstairs to the drivers’ restroom and it is all white blokes. It is about encouraging companies to think outside the box and to identify people even if they do not fit the normal driver profile and say, “Is this person a good worker?” and to support them that way.

Kat Springle: I do not think the changes to theory testing have done much to encourage foreign drivers. Having theory tests conducted in foreign languages has been removed. We have certainly perceived that that has put an additional barrier to entry for people for whom English is not their first language. We made the point in our written submission that a theory test constitutes technical English for the most part and not just basic spoken English. We really feel that that is quite a significant barrier.

Q113   Mark Menzies: My thinking was more about someone born and raised in this country but who comes from an ethnic minority. It is very anecdotal but there seems to be an under-representation of those people in the industry. I am keen to see what we can do to try to reach out.

Nathalie Axon: It is all about zebras and gnus again. We need more buffalo.

Q114   Huw Merriman: This may be a question to Ms Springle, because it was inspired by talking to a training centre manager on the south coast over the weekend. He was talking about the challenges of getting young recruits into the industry. He put it down to the fact, first, that Government regulations are so costly that it puts young people off making that commitment, or they just cannot afford it. When I put to him, “Why don’t the haulage companies pay for that training?” his point was that unfortunately the haulage industry is its own worst enemy because it then poaches for the extra 50p, as we have mentioned. Haulage companies are quite reluctant to make that investment themselves. I wondered whether you agree with those assumptions and, if so, whether you can see any inspirational changes that would see new entrants come through and be trained in the market.

Kat Springle: I would agree with your assumption that hauliers are not keen to train people up. Sometimes we see people not being trained beyond the actual weight of vehicle that they need to drive, so that they cannot get work elsewhere earning more money. We see that, but the area where there is scope for movement in the right direction is getting training providers and insurance companies working with hauliers to deliver training so that the insurance companies are prepared to lower the premium for a young or newly qualified driver. At the moment we do not have a joined-up approach there; for example, in our organisation we have the ability to conduct training to an agreed framework that the insurer might be happy with so that they lower the premium. What we often find is that young drivers, once they get trained, come up against the two-year insurance thing, which makes it very difficult for a haulier to take them on, because they are more expensive to insure.

Q115   Huw Merriman: Do you see haulage companies in the industry providing loans? They might make them interest free as long as the driver stays a certain period of time or are locked into their contract because they have to pay the loan back in increments. Does that type of thing go on to encourage entrants?

Kat Springle: Yes, we see some of that, although not a lot. It is difficult for them to keep people once they have become qualified. A lot of it is just asking the person to pay for it up front. Most of our customers self-fund in full. Another problem is the perception of the cost. In the previous session it was said to be a minimum of £3,000 to £5,000. In my opinion, that is grossly exaggerated. Someone can get into the industry on an entry level category C licence for about £2,000.

Q116   Martin Vickers: The £3,000 to £5,000 that was mentioned in the previous session is the figure that my local haulage companies are quoting. You are making it very clear that it could be substantially less than that.

Kat Springle: Substantially less. It is dependent on the driver’s requirements, but if we are talking about something to get them going, it could be significantly less than that.

Q117   Martin Vickers: In the previous panel, I asked about Government support. I do not think I am misrepresenting the witnesses, since they are still here, by saying that their views ranged from negative to fairly negative about Government support for the industry. Do you have a similar perception?

Nathalie Axon: I feel that the industry needs to be funding the training of drivers. They are the ones that use the drivers. If somebody is going to be putting their working life into the hands of a haulier, it would seem fair that the haulier trained them.

Q118   Martin Vickers: Would either of you like to comment on Government support? 

Kat Springle: The Government have been fairly supportive. This is a discussion that has been raised the whole time I have been in the industry, which is seven years. I have heard it crop up time and time again. This time around the Government seem to be listening. We are here today, and we know that there have been other issues similar to this in terms of safety where the Government have got quite heavily involved. We are all starting to get on to the same page.

Q119   Martin Vickers: Would that equally apply to the point that was raised by the earlier witnesses about standards across Europe? Is it a major problem, and do you find that drivers, and indeed vehicles, from other parts of Europe are not meeting the same standards and that the various Government and EU agencies are not policing those standards?

Kat Springle: I do not think I would be able to comment on that, unfortunately.

Jenny Tipping: Some large companies assess all their drivers. That is how they get round the insurance issue. They assess all their drivers regardless of experience and nationality. If they pass the assessment, they are accepted. They turn people away who have been driving for 30 years in this country, but they take the new people as well.

Nathalie Axon: I agree with what Jenny has just said.

Q120   Stewart Malcolm McDonald: I am listening to what the witnesses and other members have been saying about the industry being white men. It sounds like politics; it is dominated by the same people. There is a whole debate at the moment about institutions and industries looking like the country they exist in. The Oscars are too white. Yesterday, the Prime Minister said that our universities are too white. The road haulage sector is too white. I am interested in the changes you mentioned, Kat Springle, with regard to being able to take the test in a foreign language. You said that that is no longer available to people. Is that why you have called for foreign language tests to be introduced? Is it in response to that?

Kat Springle: Anecdotally, a lot of prospective HGV drivers we train do not have English as their first language. Many of them are so determined to become HGV drivers, despite the evidence that we have heard that it is not a popular career track, that they get themselves through three theory tests and obviously the practical training element and all the CPC requirements to be able to take it on as a career. We are not helping them to do that by not allowing them to take a test in their own language.

Q121   Stewart Malcolm McDonald: Are there any other jurisdictions in Europe where you cannot take a test in your own language? Are we unique in that sense?

Kat Springle: I would not know, I am afraid. I am sorry.

Q122   Stewart Malcolm McDonald: There is one other thing I want to mention that has cropped up once or twice, although we have not touched on it in any detail, and that is Calais. Before this session started at four o’clock, the House of Commons Twitter account tweeted that we were having this evidence session. The first tweet to respond said, “Not surprised no one wants to go into the industry because of Calais.” What has that done in terms of reputation to your industry?

Jenny Tipping: I am in a Facebook group of drivers and I know of people who have been threatened. Going back to language, a very senior charity worker in Calais basically said something along the lines of, “If they don’t like the treatment that they’re getting at the hands of migrants, then they should find a different job.” This is not just inconvenient facilities; this is violence and intimidation. It is very serious threats. Why should anyone be prepared to put up with that for the wages that a driver gets? They retracted that statement, but it was obviously born of an attitude that is not uncommon—that people should just put up with it. Something has to be done to make it safe. Again, it is about language. These are not just people who go off on a jolly. They are not only doing their job for themselves; they are delivering services and products for the country. They are essential workers, and that is the language that should be coming out about it.

Q123   Stewart Malcolm McDonald: When you say that that kind of attitude is not uncommon, what do you mean by that? Do you mean in relation to Calais specifically?

Jenny Tipping: No, I mean in relation to truckers.

Q124   Stewart Malcolm McDonald: Can you expand on that?

Jenny Tipping: We have talked about drivers being refused access to facilities at delivery sites, and certainly the attitude that you sometimes get from people in warehouses is just, “Well, tough.” In advance of something that I wrote in the CILT magazine, I asked another truckers’ forum about facilities. Quite a number of people said that they are treated like scum—that having facilities is a basic human need and it is as if they are not human. That is very common and a large number of people said it.

Stewart Malcolm McDonald: Do you want to add anything, Ms Axon?

Nathalie Axon: No, I think that has been covered.

Q125   Stewart Malcolm McDonald: Going back to what Mr Menzies was asking you about the diversity issue, do BME drivers face any particular challenges of which you are aware, other than the obvious one of language in terms of testing? I know we have the buffalo and zebra analogy, but why is it so white?

Jenny Tipping: I am afraid you would have to ask somebody else.

Q126   Stewart Malcolm McDonald: You mentioned the Warehouse to Wheels initiative, which is trying to address that.

Jenny Tipping: Yes. That is an opportunity to address it, because such a large number of ethnic minority people work in warehouses. Why they do not then actively choose to go into driving, or why their employers do not choose to promote them in that way, I am afraid you would have to ask them. It is not something I have ever discussed with anybody.

Q127   Chair: I want to ask about HGV driving tests. About half of those who take the test fail. Why do you think that is? Is there something wrong with the test or the training?

Nathalie Axon: Insufficient hours are spent behind the wheel before going to test. It is assuming 20 hours, including going to test. If you are starting on the Monday and finishing on the Friday, doing four hours per day, on the last day that four hours is taken up with perhaps an hour and a half driving around before you go to the test centre, then sitting there for half an hour, and then having the test, which is an hour and a half. Then you have to get back to where the vehicle is kept. That is actually giving you about 17 and a half hours behind the wheel. I see it as like a sausage factory. You are pushed in one end and you pop out the other end. I believe that in some cases the pass rate is as low as 38%, so some people pass and a lot do not.

Q128   Chair: How is it organised? How much does it cost the unsuccessful driver?

Nathalie Axon: It is typically about another £350 to go again, because you need another remedial four-hour session. Then you need to go to test again, which is another four hours plus another test fee, which is £115 or £145, depending on which day of the week you do it.

Q129   Chair: Does it take a long time to get another test?

Nathalie Axon: Yes, at the moment, unless you jump on a cancellation or unless you are very lucky, and you keep watching and grab a test.

Q130   Chair: How long could it be?

Nathalie Axon: It could be several weeks. In my experience, we have been quite lucky. We have been very flexible. Rather than just going to one test centre, training in an area and going to test in that centre, we have been happy to drive two or three hours to another test centre because there happened to be a cancellation there. The drivers go there totally unprepared for the roads and the different things to look out for.

Q131   Chair: Once they have passed it, are they then equipped for the road?

Nathalie Axon: I believe the drivers that we have been training are well equipped because we do a lot of yard and classroom training, which is not part of the general LGV training.

Q132   Chair: That is something that you do in your company.

Nathalie Axon: Yes. We do that in a live haulage environment.

Q133   Chair: Is that unusual?

Nathalie Axon: I think it is very unusual, yes.

Q134   Chair: Does anybody else want to comment on this issue?

Kat Springle: We conduct training nationwide. It is a 16-hour course. Our pass rates are not as low as those you would see reflected in the test centre averages. What is important to remember is that, when you look at the data from test centres, you are encapsulating different types of people from different types of training provider. To take one example, our facility in Hook, which we own and run, has a first-time pass rate approaching 80% week on week. We are very successfully delivering training within a small amount of time and customers are passing. As Nathalie said, a lot of that is to do with having a framework that works really well for that person, identifies their weaknesses quickly and then addresses them within that short timeframe, but also gives them the skills to move on. Obviously I believe the CPC, particularly module four, has been a huge part of making sure that drivers are ready for work. When the module four training and test are delivered well, they form quite an important part of the driver’s progression into the world of work.

Q135   Chair: Ms Tipping, do you want to add anything on training?

Jenny Tipping: I am not really involved in training at all.

Q136   Chair: We have been told that some driver CPC trainers lack credibility because they are not drivers. Is that correct?

Jenny Tipping: I have never been a CPC trainer who is not a driver so I do not know what it is like for them to be in a classroom. Sometimes the assumption among the students in the room if they do not know me is that they are not expecting me to know what I am talking about. By far the easiest way of getting them on side is to make it clear that I am a driver. It depends on what the course is. For example, for loading and unloading and the different sorts of loading and restraining apparatus, it is much easier to run a training course when you can give your own experience and get other people to share their experience. It is useful to know about drivers’ hours; it makes so much difference when you have been up against it and when you are used to using tachographs and sticking within limits. It is much easier.

              However, there are other CPC courses where it does not matter quite so much. A lot of people who were previously health and safety training providers move into doing CPC. They have the right knowledge. There is a lot of regulation in relation to ADR, on hazardous goods and that kind of thing. A lot of it is very theoretical, so it can be taught by whoever is an expert in that topic.

Q137   Chair: Should load restraint be part of mandatory training?

Jenny Tipping: I know that Kat has had major issues with that being part of the test. I am not really in a position to comment, because the small amount of training I did was before that regulation came in. There is no real need for it to be part of the on-road test, but it needs to be part of very early stage CPC. Yes, I think it should be, because you are driving a lethal weapon and, if anything falls off, it is not the company that is responsible but you. You would be up in court and potentially going to prison if something fell off your lorry and killed someone. Those things are all vital and need to be made clear very early in a driver’s career.

Q138   Chair: Does anybody else want to comment on that? You have heard a lot this afternoon about the problem of shortages of qualified drivers, perhaps to do with recruitment or retention. You have heard a lot about the image of the industry and about training. What are the main concerns that you have from your own experience on the extent of the problem, and who should be doing what to try to change the situation?

Jenny Tipping: There are a variety of things that would come under improving the driver experience. We have already heard about facilities and the treatment of drivers. In terms of the hours, there are a lot of companies that could restructure so that the hours would be far more predictable. Nathalie does supermarkets, and my experience of supermarkets is that you quite often get to the back door and you are expected to wait for hours; it is the same in other warehouses. That is not fair, for a start. It is a complete waste of company money, but it also means that the driver cannot plan their home life. You still have the same amount of work to do after that period. We heard earlier about a period of availability being used, which does not come into drivers’ hours.

Q139   Chair: Would the same apply to the situation you are describing—when you are kept waiting? Would you be paid for that or not?

Jenny Tipping: Yes, I think you would probably be paid for it, but it just generally reduces the attractiveness of the job.

Nathalie Axon: One thing that really takes away from the job is that, typically, in many agency situations you would know at half-past eight in the morning that you would be on at half past one that afternoon. There are not many people these days who would want to be in limbo thinking, “Am I working or not today?”

Q140   Chair: Ms Springle, is there anything special you would like to bring forward?

Kat Springle: We are not looking at the pool of drivers who are interested in it as a career. We hear a lot from drivers who have been on the career track and there are issues, but I would argue that that is across all sectors. There are newly qualified drivers who are interested in working in this field but we are not doing enough to get them into work. I believe that is because of the disconnect between hauliers and their insurance providers, and not being able to utilise the bank of drivers that is there. They are there; we have them sitting there. It is just that employers are not able to take them on because of insurance issues.

Q141   Chair: You are saying that the problem is perhaps not quite the same as it is sometimes portrayed, and that the drivers are there but they are not taken on to do the work.

Kat Springle: Yes. I am not arguing about the thousands of drivers’ shortage—I wouldn’t dare. What I would say is that we may be looking in the wrong place. Instead of looking at licence holders who have held their licence for a long time, let us start looking at those who are just qualifying. We deal with them every day and we know that they are excited to be part of the industry. Why are we not looking to them to take on some of the roles that are available? Time and time again when I ask that question of hauliers the answer is, “I cannot afford to insure them.”

Q142   Chair: From what you have seen, and all your experiences, is it to do with retention as much as recruitment? Is it to do with getting people to stay in the sector?

Nathalie Axon: Those who are in employment stay there all their lives; but 98% of the HGV jobs advertised are what I would term agencies fishing with a line. They want you to go in, make an appointment and register. Then they typically give you a couple of shifts with the client that they talked to you about. Then that will dry up and they will use you at Easter and Christmas. For the rest of the time there may be some work or there may not. January has been very quiet generally. I do not believe there is as big a driver shortage as everybody is saying. I maintain that there are a lot of existing licence holders out there who have got the two years and the experience that industry likes, but who are limiting their availability in the driver pool because of the terms, because of the management services providers and because basically the wages have been screwed down to the point where we are earning the same now as we did in 2007-08.

Q143   Chair: Is that a very big issue prevalent in the whole industry?

Nathalie Axon: I think it is.

Q144   Chair: Does anyone else want to comment on that? In terms of a young woman thinking of being an HGV driver, what would you say? Would you encourage them?

Nathalie Axon: I would like to comment on that. They term it as a man’s wage, but I do not think it is a man’s wage any longer. I know that with a lot of jobs that are aimed at women there is a gender pay gap, so that jobs that are mainly aimed at women tend to pay less per hour than a similar kind of job for a man. The industry is not a bad wage for a woman. It offers quite a good wage for a woman. I do not think it is really a man’s wage any more; it has fallen.

Q145   Chair: Would you encourage young men to go into HGV driving?

Nathalie Axon: I would certainly encourage women, because compared with caring or retail and so on you would be better paid as a driver.

Jenny Tipping: I would encourage women but I would probably also mention different things than I might to a young man. Driving is a starter level job in a very interesting industry. You do not necessarily have to think, “Right, I am going to be a driver for the rest of my life.” You could go into transport management. You could go into training. You could go into all sorts of very interesting areas within the logistics industry, all of which would benefit massively from your having been an experienced driver. I would probably mention that more. The other thing I always mention whenever I am talking to women is that, in the job, I have never had to lift anything heavier than a two-year-old, and women lift those quite a lot.

Q146   Chair: Is that picture ever portrayed to women?

Jenny Tipping: I am doing my best.

Q147   Chair: Yes, you are doing very well, but is anyone else doing it?

Jenny Tipping: There is a group called Women in Logistics, which runs a lot of events. There is the Facebook group. There are the Everywoman awards. There is the new scheme from the RHA. I do not exactly know what that is going to look like yet, but we shall see. There are schemes out there.

Kat Springle: I do not think the voice is loud enough encouraging women into the industry. I mentioned earlier that there have been significant changes in the technology in vehicles which mean that it is not a man’s world any more, but we are not actually telling women that. Having said that, there has been quite a bit in the media that has certainly inspired some of the people we hear from who want to join the career track. For example, “Ice Road Truckers” has done a lot for the industry, not least the young lady who drives hundreds of miles across ice. We need to do more to encourage women specifically. That is about educating them that they are not too weak to do the job, that they are not going to spend their entire life having the mickey taken out of them and that it is okay for them to want to be a lorry driver.

Q148   Chair: You can assure them that it will be okay from that point of view.

Kat Springle: I looked at our inquiries over a month, and 6% of those inquiries were from women; five years ago it would probably have been more like 2%. The message is getting out there slowly but surely.

Jenny Tipping: In terms of HGV licence holders overall, it is roughly 3% to 3.5% women. For those over 50, it is 1% women, but for those under 24 it is 8%. It is gradually shifting.

Nathalie Axon: Interestingly, we have two websites. In the same way that L’Oreal make a face cream for men and a face cream for women that are both the same but packaged and marketed totally differently, we have a website for men and a website for women. We get no inquiries on the website for men, but on the website for women we get about 50 inquiries a week.

Chair: On that optimistic note, thank you very much for coming to talk to us.

              Oral evidence: Road haulage sector: Skills and workforce planning, HC 517                            20