Shortage of HGV drivers

That this House notes with concern that the shortage of HGV drivers in the UK is at crisis point; regrets that even before the covid-19 pandemic, when the UK road transport business employed approximately 600,000 drivers, that there was still a shortfall of as many as 70,000 vacancies; further notes with growing alarm that many of the 60,000 drivers from EU member states who were residing and working in the UK before Brexit have now left the British jobs market; calls on the Government to take seriously the combined stresses of added border checks since Brexit, an aging and fast retiring workforce, ever increasing numbers of EU drivers who are choosing not to work in the UK and the delays caused by covid-19 safe industry measures; requests that an industry-wide support scheme is urgently developed by the Secretary of State for Transport to increase the rate of driver training and recruitment; further calls on the Chancellor to compensate small and medium-sized haulage firms for the costs involved with border checks and delays with our EU neighbours and to reduce the impact of IR35 regulations on these same firms; and asks the Home Secretary to add HGV drivers to the UK Shortage Occupation list to attract overseas labour to the UK.