UK government to shorten HGV driver testing process

© AlenaKravchenko

Faced with empty supermarket shelves and warnings of supply chain disruption as the shortage of lorry drivers hits every sector, including the country’s water supplies, the UK government is expected to fast-track new HGV driver training. “The penny has finally dropped … and the government finally seems to understand the scale of the problem”, one source told the BBC. “For the first time they look rattled.”

Although the proposals have not been formally announced, it is widely expected that they will include combining the Class C test for rigid lorries and Class E for larger articulated vehicles into a single test, speeding up the process.

But hauliers said it was not enough, and called for HGV drivers to be added to the Shortage Occupation List, which would allow foreign drivers to return to work in the UK.