Hundreds of thousands of people not using their HGV licenses, says Minister
23 September 2021, 10:56 | Updated: 23 September 2021, 12:01
Hundreds of thousands of people not using their HGV licenses, says Small Business Minister
Hundreds of thousands of people who have HGV licenses are not currently using them, says Small Business Minister Paul Scully.
He made the comment while speaking to LBC's Nick Ferrari about supply chain issues, after the Government struck a deal with a major carbon dioxide supplier to restart production at its UK sites.
Mr Scully said: "So you’d have seen the issue with CO2 supply and government have intervened and they’re to make sure that we can keep food production and keep food supply there.
"I’m glad that that CO2 production has continued, [it’s] now restarted and is now going to be getting into that supply chain ASAP.
"In terms of HGV drivers and so moving our supplies around, we’re working across government at the moment to encourage more… there are hundreds of thousands of people across the country who have HGV licenses who are not currently using them, not currently working, how we can get them back into the sector.
"We’re doing that by enhancing some of the support that we’re giving to businesses to take on new employees and especially new apprentices early on in their career, and we’re also making 50,000 new tests available per year by changing the system which will allow the backlog of testing to be sorted out, that raised during the pandemic."
