Sunday, June 27, 2021
Do empty supermarket shelves beckon?
Brexit and the UK Government's policies on migrant workers have struck again. According to the Guardian, school meals could be disrupted for the remainder of this term by delays and shortages of food supplies across the country as a result of a dearth of lorry drivers in the UK.
The paper reports industry representatives have told Boris Johnson that the driver shortage – exacerbated by Brexit and the pandemic – is causing a “crisis” in the food supply chain, with the UK road haulage sector having a shortage of 100,000 lorry drivers:
Rod McKenzie, managing director of policy at the Road Haulage Association, said the shortage of lorry drivers was a “critical issue” which was having a “real impact on a whole range of different sectors”.
He told the Observer: “We desperately need the government to help us by loosening the current immigration restrictions and speeding up lorry driver testing.”
About 15,000 European drivers had left the UK since the start of the year, and about 30,000 HGV driving tests were lost last year because of Covid restrictions, he said. Those numbers added to a historic shortage of 60,000 drivers which meant the shortfall was now more than 100,000.
“The government needs to act fast before food supplies get to a critical level,” he said. It was “completely unsurprising” that school meals were now being affected.
The impact of this shortage will not just fall on school meals. Supermarkets are already finding it difficult to fill shelves with certain products, while farmers producing soft fruit in particular, are struggling to source the daily deliveries they need to get their product to the consumer.
Meanwhile, lorry drivers seeking to fill vacancies are being denied entry to the UK because of government policies on migrant workers.
None of this was on the side of that Brexit bus.
The paper reports industry representatives have told Boris Johnson that the driver shortage – exacerbated by Brexit and the pandemic – is causing a “crisis” in the food supply chain, with the UK road haulage sector having a shortage of 100,000 lorry drivers:
Rod McKenzie, managing director of policy at the Road Haulage Association, said the shortage of lorry drivers was a “critical issue” which was having a “real impact on a whole range of different sectors”.
He told the Observer: “We desperately need the government to help us by loosening the current immigration restrictions and speeding up lorry driver testing.”
About 15,000 European drivers had left the UK since the start of the year, and about 30,000 HGV driving tests were lost last year because of Covid restrictions, he said. Those numbers added to a historic shortage of 60,000 drivers which meant the shortfall was now more than 100,000.
“The government needs to act fast before food supplies get to a critical level,” he said. It was “completely unsurprising” that school meals were now being affected.
The impact of this shortage will not just fall on school meals. Supermarkets are already finding it difficult to fill shelves with certain products, while farmers producing soft fruit in particular, are struggling to source the daily deliveries they need to get their product to the consumer.
Meanwhile, lorry drivers seeking to fill vacancies are being denied entry to the UK because of government policies on migrant workers.
None of this was on the side of that Brexit bus.
