Germans with no HGV experience asked to drive
lorries amid UK fuel crisis
Mass appeal automatically sent to holders of pre-1999
German licences, which entitle holder to drive trucks
Julia Kollewe
and Graeme Wearden
Fri 1 Oct
2021 18.03 BST
Thousands
of Germans who live in the UK have been written to by the government asking
them to drive lorries in an attempt to ease the UK fuel crisis, even though the
majority have never been at the wheel of an HGV.
They were
included in a 1m-letter mass mailing that also tried to recruit ambulance
drivers to get behind the wheel of lorries.
The
recruitment drive is aimed at easing the UK’s supply chain shortages and a lack
of petrol at forecourts.
The news
came as a government minister warned that motorists could face another week of
queues at the pumps and an industry body said more than a quarter (26%) of
independently owned petrol stations in the UK were still dry.
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The Germans
were automatically included in the mailout because German driving licences
issued before 1999 include an entitlement to drive small- to medium-sized
trucks of up to 7.5 tonnes.
A
Department for Transport (DfT) spokesperson explained that UK residents from
Germany who swapped their licence for a British one would have had that element
transferred to the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA) database. This
meant they were included in the HGV category, which also covered ambulance
drivers, when the DVLA sent out the letter.
The DfT
said: “The letter was automatically sent to almost 1 million people with lorry
licences - including a limited number of international residents who were
automatically eligible. Anyone wishing to drive professionally faces further
tests and training.”
A
spokesperson said: “We don’t want ambulance drivers to change jobs, or to be
diverted from their vital work saving lives … it was impossible to narrow the
copy-list by profession due to personal data protection.”
One
41-year-old German man, who, along with his wife, received a copy of the letter
at their London home on Friday morning, told the Independent: “We were quite
surprised. I’m sure pay and conditions for HGV drivers have improved, but
ultimately I have decided to carry on in my role at an investment bank.
“My wife
has never driven anything larger than a Volvo, so she is also intending to
decline the exciting opportunity.”
The Petrol
Retailers Association (PRA) said on Friday that the fuel situation at
forecourts was improving, but far too slowly, and that independent petrol
retailers were not receiving enough fuel to meet demand, more than a week after
the shortages were first reported.
The
policing minister, Kit Malthouse, said it could take “a week or so” for things
to return to normality.
He told
Radio 4’s Today programme: “We are still seeing strong demand in parts of the
country around fuel.
“My latest
briefing is that the situation is stabilising, that we are seeing more
forecourts with a greater supply of fuel and hopefully that, as demand and
supply come better into balance over the next few days, week or so, that we
will see a return to normality.
“If things
started to deteriorate further, obviously the prime minister and the secretary
of state for energy [Kwasi Kwarteng], whose responsibility this is, will have
to review the situation.”
One option
is to deploy the army drivers who are on standby, and have been receiving
specialist training in how to drive fuel tankers.
The PRA,
which represents two-thirds of the UK’s 8,380 forecourts, said fewer than half
of them (47%) had both petrol and diesel in stock on Friday, compared with 52%
on Thursday.
Gordon
Balmer, the executive director of the PRA, said: “Whilst the situation is
similar to recent days, there are signs it is improving – but far too slowly.
“Independents
… are not receiving enough deliveries of fuel compared with other sectors such
as supermarkets. Until independents start getting frequent supplies, we will
continue to see long queues at forecourts.”
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