Brexit

[C8RKH]

28 minutes ago, PaulCP said:

What they failed to analyse,

Do they actually analyse anything these days?  I do struggle with the unemployment numbers v number of job vacancies. I get that not everyone, myself included, can apply for a job as a rocket scientist or a Doctor, but surely 50% of the jobs available would be a "fit" for 50% of the unemployed.  Yes, it then comes down to location etc.  But the sad fact is that Paul is correct. For too many people, life not working, but sponging, is actually quite good as they get their benefits then cash on the side either through work or illegal activities.

[basalte]

Government : "Rejoice , we`re ending freedom of movement. Hurrah for giving you a 90 day time limit to your retirement in Spain if you`re not a citizen".

Then Government : " Driver shortage nothing to do with Brexit".

Now-Also Government : "We are issuing temporary visas to EU citizens (to give them freedom of movement to come here to drive HGVs)".

Brave attempts made here to square the circle - and conditions for drivers here are indeed worse than they are on the continent- but ending freedom of movement tipped a difficult situation into a crisis.

Not my word for it, the road haulage association`s , as above.

Presumably it can be agreed that they know a bit about hauling things on the road . Certainly more than a Daily Express journalist would.

 

[C8RKH]

13 minutes ago, basalte said:

Not my word for it, the road haulage association`s , as above.

Presumably it can be agreed that they know a bit about hauling things on the road . Certainly more than a Daily Express journalist would.

So answer me this simple point. What changed in under a month to cause the chaos?  (Tip: it wasn't that 15000, out of 600,000 HGV drivers decided to crawl back over the channel because of Brexit).

As for the haulage association, they of course have no ulterior motive or hidden agenda i what they say have they?

No ones making any brave attempts to square the circle, but muppets blindly blaming Brexit are being called out and re the temporary visa's, I may have read it wrong but i think they numbered 300. What fooking difference do you really think 300 would make? oh and 137 have accepted so if 300 would make a difference we're almost half way there to making a difference.

 

[Doug Ashley]

Brexit is a major factor in the effects of the driver shortage now being felt.  It's not just down to the numbers of drivers in each market, Brexit has fundamentally changed the efficiency of the system.

- The UK has a similar size shortage in drivers to other EU countries.

- But, GB is the only country with widespread gaps on supermarket shelves / garage forecourts.  Northern Ireland is affected to a degree due to checks applied to deliveries from the mainland, but there are no petrol shortages thanks to the open border with Ireland.

- Between countries on the continent and Ireland, there is no hard border or bureaucracy affecting the flow of goods.  Drivers do international deliveries, and then some local jobs on their way back.  This used to happen freely in the UK.

- Thanks to customs checks etc., the UK is now so cumbersome to trade with from overseas that we have to rely more on our domestic hauliers.

Hence, the haulage market in the UK has become significantly more inefficient, while in the EU the work can go where the demand is with no barriers.  It's not just drivers, the number of trucks in the UK at any one time has reduced because many are not bothering to cross the channel.

It's being felt now because since the start of the year, EU companies have gradually been replacing their UK suppliers with others to avoid these checks, and we reached critical mass a month or two ago whereby the effects are now being seen.

I'm not a haulage expert, but it seems obvious that by restricting the flow of goods/labour across our borders will fundamentally reduce the efficiency of the continental supply chains which we used to benefit from.  We can no longer share the burden with neighbouring countries.

The pandemic is another factor, but we had the pandemic over nearly all of 2020, and we've only seen these effects this year...

[Barrykearley]

Maybe they should analyse their own reporting yesterday. One driver who was getting out cos he’s fed up working flat out - pay very poor £13 an hour - all the while having to crap in a carrier bag due to lack of basic facilities.

we in the UK have allowed business to exploit cheap labour for far too long.

[basalte]

Ta Doug. You have expressed the origins of this situation more articulately than I can .  "Critical mass" is the key expression here, as alluded to by the Chief Executive of the Road Haulage Association in my post of 4th August .

The attribution of "ulterior" motives to him seems all too simplistic here when he`s been pretty quiet for the past year. The CEO of the Road Haulage Association seems to have given a credible prediction given the  queues of traffic blocking the roads round here when  the last time they did so was probably 2002.

The idea that ending free movement and reintroducing customs checks won`t have any knock-on effects on a complex interlocking supply system - whenever those effects may kick in

- is simply unrealistic. They happened to kick in last month. I already stated that Brexit was hardly the only factor.

(I give the EU 5 out of 10 by the way, I`m hardly its greatest defender. You will note from my myriad comments elsewhere on the net that fanatical pro-EU people do not have all the answers by any means. But leaving the EU  has some upsides and some downsides. This is one of the downsides). 

Meanwhile the only politician actually , literally, supportively quoting a Muppet is Mr. Johnson !

The Brexit elephant won`t shift from the room because the effects are too tangible not to attract comment, not because I want to put one over on a tribe called "Leavers" .

[pete]

The problem with the foreign drivers was that none of them were employed, they were all working for agencies who were earning the big money. Consequently when covid came and everything shut down they received nothing and went back home and haven't been able to come back

[Doug Ashley]

What's interesting now is that:

- 'The shortages are absolutely nothing to do with Brexit'

has very quickly become:

- 'The shortages are an inevitable part of our master plan to increase wages'.  

 

Never mind the impact on inflation etc. & overall growth...

Cognitive dissonance is something this government excels at.

[100th_Idiot]

Here is the truck driver shortage in the USA.

https://truckerjobusa.com/the-u-s-truck-driver-shortages-fact-or-fiction/

Of course caused by Brexit.

Friend of mine worked for many years in international purchasing and logistics The USA were leaders in treating their drivers like dirt and squeezing the supply chain prices year over year. So older drivers left/retired and nobody new joined.

It may have been slightly exacerbated by Brexit but it was going to happen regardless. Big buyers and RHA caused this over many years and did nothing to avoid it.

[pete]

1 hour ago, Doug Ashley said:

What's interesting now is that:

- 'The shortages are absolutely nothing to do with Brexit'

has very quickly become:

- 'The shortages are an inevitable part of our master plan to increase wages'.  

 

Never mind the impact on inflation etc. & overall growth...

Cognitive dissonance is something this government excels at.

There is a shortage of all manual jobs,blame it on Blair wanting all to go to uni. 

[C8RKH]

1 hour ago, 100th_Idiot said:

Here is the truck driver shortage in the USA.

https://truckerjobusa.com/the-u-s-truck-driver-shortages-fact-or-fiction/

Of course caused by Brexit.

Friend of mine worked for many years in international purchasing and logistics The USA were leaders in treating their drivers like dirt and squeezing the supply chain prices year over year. So older drivers left/retired and nobody new joined.

It may have been slightly exacerbated by Brexit but it was going to happen regardless. Big buyers and RHA caused this over many years and did nothing to avoid it.

Yeah, but it's because of Brexit dummy. Get with the programme. Drink the Coolaid. Get on message.

I agree with you @Doug Ashleythat Brexit is a major cause of shelves being empty. Hard to argue with that.

But it's not a major cause of the driver shortage. That's years of companies and society taking the piss and is a problem that has been there for some time re poor conditions and pay. Even if you take worts case numbers it's 16000 drivers out of a shortage of 100,000, so 16%,due directly to Brexit. The other 84% ain't down to Brexit!

And if you look at it from an ethical point of view are you endorsing and supporting the fact that 16000 europeans were being treated poorly and given shit pay and conditions so you could enjoy full shelves in the supermarket?

Doesn't sound so great when you turn the argument around does it?

I don't think any sane person would argue that Brexit has NOT had an impact. But it feels like for many people all roads and PoVs lead to Brexit being the cause of everything.

Maybe if the EU had negotiated in good faith we would not have gotten to this situation. But their petulant arrogance in dealing with Cameron forced this outcome as much as anything. Just like the British. Government and British people, the EU missed chances to drive a better outcome for all 

I see yet again, our friends over the Channel issuing more threats, the French of course, this time to force us into blackouts to force their will over us. Totally pathetic behaviour as expected. Still glad we are out as a result of that.

interesting reading here as it seems some EU haulage operators still see the UK as a growth market for them! Who'd have figured. Oh and BP, Texaco, Jet and several others have scrapped their fueling restrictions at their forcourts as muppets have no more plastic water bottles to fill with petrol!  Or maybe all the EU tanker lorry drivers who left 2 weeks ago suddenly, have suddenly come back!

 

https://trans.info/en/european-haulage-giants-weigh-in-on-uk-s-supply-chain-crisis-256942

[100th_Idiot]

This would be the fishing boats that would get permits if they could show historical rights to fish the water as agreed in the Brexit terms except they can't because they all turned off their legally mandated transponders to overfish UK wasters while we were in the EU. No historical data no permit.

Got another mate that manages a fishing fleet (outside EU).

[C8RKH]

7 minutes ago, 100th_Idiot said:

This would be the fishing boats that would get permits if they could show historical rights to fish the water as agreed in the Brexit terms except they can't because they all turned off their legally mandated transponders to overfish UK wasters while we were in the EU. No historical data no permit.

Got another mate that manages a fishing fleet (outside EU).

So it's all Brexits fault again then as yet again we have stopped some in the EU from taking the piss and so we need to be punished!  I'm getting into the coolaid I think 😂😁

[Chillidoggy]

I'm not sure I agree with the claim that many hauliers/trucks are not bothering with the UK. I went to France a while ago. The ferry was devoid of punters, but absolutely rammed with freight in both directions. I accept two crossings are not a gauge, so I turned to the port of Dover's own figures.

The collapse in passenger numbers is, I would venture to suggest, Covid-related, rather than anything to do with Brexit. On the plus side, Duty Free goods are now back in action, and so there was a small celebration with a litre of Gordons gin at £10.99, but I wonder how long the ferry operators can continue, given the drop in their revenue stream. The airlines must be facing the same kind of falls.

So, back to road haulage, interestingly the YTD Q2 2021 figures show a 0.9% decrease in RHV's over those carried in Q2 2020, not exactly the post-apocalyptic picture being painted by some. Clearly, these are only half yearly figures, but unlike most of the hot air, they are fact, not fiction.

 

Quarter 2 (YTD)	2021	2020	% change
Passengers	1,255,169	2,212,761	-43.3%
Cars	68,327	286,181	-76.1%
Coaches	1,097	9,087	-87.9%
Road Haulage Vehicles	1,041,697	1,051,524	-0.9%
Vessel Entries - Ferry	6,944	6,739	+3.0%
Vessel Entries - Catamaran	-	-

[C8RKH]

3 hours ago, Chillidoggy said:

I'm not sure I agree with the claim that many hauliers/trucks are not bothering with the UK. I went to France a while ago. The ferry was devoid of punters, but absolutely rammed with freight in both directions. I accept two crossings are not a gauge, so I turned to the port of Dover's own figures.

The collapse in passenger numbers is, I would venture to suggest, Covid-related, rather than anything to do with Brexit. On the plus side, Duty Free goods are now back in action, and so there was a small celebration with a litre of Gordons gin at £10.99, but I wonder how long the ferry operators can continue, given the drop in their revenue stream. The airlines must be facing the same kind of falls.

So, back to road haulage, interestingly the YTD Q2 2021 figures show a 0.9% decrease in RHV's over those carried in Q2 2020, not exactly the post-apocalyptic picture being painted by some. Clearly, these are only half yearly figures, but unlike most of the hot air, they are fact, not fiction.

 

Quarter 2 (YTD)	2021	2020	% change
Passengers	1,255,169	2,212,761	-43.3%
Cars	68,327	286,181	-76.1%
Coaches	1,097	9,087	-87.9%
Road Haulage Vehicles	1,041,697	1,051,524	-0.9%
Vessel Entries - Ferry	6,944	6,739	+3.0%
Vessel Entries - Catamaran	-	-

Ooooh, you bitch! using real facts and figures. Just get with it and accept it's all down to Brexit, including the weather (which is stunning today actually here in Scottylandshire!

 

In all seriousness, that is good insight for the period presented and certainly provides some information to analyse and digest, rather than just jumping on a bandwagon.

Looking at the stats on Ports, Tonnage handled by all UK ports decreased 9% in 2020 compared to 2019. Significant, but again, not the harbinger of doom that some people are constantly projecting. 2015 - 2019 was largely flat. Interestingly, traffic share from the EU was up 4% from the previous year!  Struggling to find figures for 2021 H1, I guess to early for them to be published?

 

[SFO]

I blame the lazy UK press for regurgitating the scare stories put about by biased parties with their own agendas. 

[Dave Eds]

My observation from someone who is regularly at the port at Purfleet On Thames.......and often at Harwich, Hull, Immingham.....

Foreign registered vehicles are few and far between at the ports now, as the freight now mainly consists of unaccompanied trailers  (previously these were accompanied by foreign drivers in foreign registered vehicles taking goods to a destination here, and doing other haulage jobs here to get them back to a port and then taking a load back into Europe).

So unaccompanied trailers now waiting in large numbers in the docks for onward shipping by our lorries, who are also bringing trailers in to the port to go back to Europe. So there's a lot of extra work for our haulage companys! Now we also have less drivers here too as some EU drivers that were based here have gone home (how many who really knows?.....)

And just to add a bit of balance a few weeks back we had a 6 hour queue to get into the freight port at Dunkerque. Only 2 out of 8 or so ticket booths open and more health and customs checks now. Imagine what that does to your tacho and fuel when your constantly starting your engine to move only a few yards......

Why would a foreign driver want to come over now?......

 

 

[C8RKH]

40 minutes ago, Dave Eds said:

Why would a foreign driver want to come over now?......

They wouldn't care as long as they get paid. Come on now.....

Change hurts, and Brexit was a big change for everyone. It takes time. Not saying that as an excuse. It's just  fact. The EU did not exactly make this easy, they could have been a bit more reasonable, that would have benefitted everyone. But hey ho.

[Bling]

I concur with Doug. The combination of the Pandemic and Brexit have left the UK in a dire situation, much like the Eastern Block in the 1970s.

We have isolated ourselves economically with Brexit, much like the Eastern Block. Obviously not as extreme but we have made it much harder to move goods and labour to the UK. 

The pandemic has created some systemic issues that will not resolve themselves quickly, resulting in a global shortage of labour and goods/produce in certain sectors. The result is that large trading blocks and countries like the EU and the US have far more buying power and therefore get priority for things in short supply, hence our petrol shortages and empty shelves. What compounds this is also the fact we are not self sufficient and do not produce or manufacture enough of anything. See the photos below I took on Monday evening this week of empty shelves.

Another factor is the tightening of IR35 rules in April last year that will have the affect of many HGV drivers who are employed on contract to prefer working in the EU rather than the UK.

The combination of all these factors does has resulted in the current situation and does not bode well for the future 😒

[C8RKH]

1 hour ago, Bling said:

therefore get priority for things in short supply, hence our petrol shortages

There was NO PETROL SHORTAGE  - Globally or in the UK for that matter!  The refineries in the UK were pumping the stuff out at the same levels as before. There has been no GLOBAL SUPPLY issue with petrol.

Yes, there was an issue refilling Petrol Station tanks, that resulted in some localised shortages (note, localised, there were not shortages all over the UK). However, that was caused predominantly by a massive, unexpected, and unpredicted surge in demand caused by people panic buying and over buying fuel in a short period of time. It was basic supply and demand - demand, for a short period, massively peaked and the Industry was not in a position to respond quickly enough to re-supply.  However, in most parts of the country the demand:supply balance is turning back to more "normal" levels and shortages are now reducing, to the extent where many of the main forecourt brands have lifted their temporary limits on refuelling.

How the fook, with all due respect, IS THAT, an example of the UK isolating itself or Brexit as the issue? Sorry, but in this aspect of your argument I am calling out BULLSHIT!

IR35. Really?  Don't make me laugh. IR35 has been impacting on the so called "self employed contractors" across all Industries, from nursing, to IT, to builders to HGV drivers for years. It's not something new. I for one welcome it as I was pissed off seeing "contractors" on long term contracts (years) getting tax benefits whilst us "permies" got crucified on PAYE. Also, the Industries are to blame, as they moved wholescale from "employing" workers to "contracting" workers. This meant they saved on tax, national insurance, pension contributions etc whilst then pointing out that in some industries, building, HGV etc, the "contractors" got tax benefits so they could pay them less. By paying them less, this coupled with the deteriorating working conditions, has meant that we have seen an uplift in "older, experience, drivers" leaving the industry in large numbers. The low rate of pay, poor working conditions and costs of getting licenced, made driving an HGV less and less attractive and so the industry has struggled over the past few years to recruit new or younger drivers in, to replace the older ones retiring or giving up, and to cope with the growth in transport volumes (i.e. we don't need to just replace the drivers who leave, we need to replace them and more for the growth).  The clampdown on the IR35 abuses, have meant that drivers find it harder to "play the system" so the rates look even less attractive.  Finally, with Europe having 400,000+ HGV driver shortages (Poland alone has 125,000+), improved rates of pay, better terms and conditions, AND much, much better facilities for their drivers (parking, food, showers, even basic things like toilets!) why would an EU HGV driver want to slum it over here when the jobs are now there for them, in the EU?  Again, forget Brexit, the Industry has created an environment that is just no longer attractive for drivers to come to the UK, as they get comparable or better pay now in the EU, AND better conditions.  So again, whilst Brexit may have had an impact, it is NOT massive (16k drivers out of 600,000 left - do the math!)

I do agree with you that the Pandemic has had a greater impact than Brexit or Britain's "Isolation".  Furlough and the loss of workforce through infection and isolation has indeed created systemic issues that will take some time to recover from.

As for Britain not producing enough, that has been an issue for 30 years. However, plenty of food, even now, if going to waste on farms up and down the country. So if we sort the supply chain out in the UK. Rationalise the Regs. And ween ourselves of "cheap food" and actually start to pay the real economic price for food (so food producers get paid a decent return) then we can solve the problem ourselves, largely.  The problem is, we want it all. We want it cheap. And we want it all the time. That is an issue of our own making over the past 30 years as we have moved from traditional, UK diet based on seasonal food availability, to smashed avocado toast year round! 

[Bling]

The petrol shortage is due to shortage of labour due to Brexit and IR35. 
 

in April 2020, IR35 put the onus of liability on to the companies resulting in many stopping the employment of contractors. Many HGV drivers prefer to remain Contractors resulting in them not wanting to work for U.K. companies now only offering permanent roles. Those who are from the EU and do want to work as permanent employees face Brexit challenges. 
 

I am not saying IR35 is a bad thing, it just one of the factors affecting the current state. It is the combination of a number of things, not one easy fix. 

[C8RKH]

8 minutes ago, Bling said:

The petrol shortage is due to shortage of labour due to Brexit and IR35. 

Complete rubbish. Sorry, do your research again please.. you are grossly simplifying what was actually a very complex situation.

The refineries were full of petrol. The central stores were full. The issue was the spike in demand - totally un-forecasted, totally unexpected, and the supply chain just could not respond quickly enough. A contributing factor is technology, that means many supply chains, fuel included, now run to "just in time" principles. This means stock is managed to demand levels and in general the forecourts are stocked to the normal demand with a %variation. When you get panic buying, you go outside of the tolerances and so the whole supply chain is stressed and buckles. Not buying excess stock improves the cashflow at the forecourts which isn't just important to independents, but also the supermarkets etc due to their large volumes of forecourts - multiply an overstock of 1000litres by 1200 forecourts and you have 1.2m litres of spare fuel the cost of which needs to be carried and no doubt the duty paid in advance of sale to end consumers. That's  a massive hit to cash flow when fuel margins are so low anyway.

Sorry, but I do think you are talking out of your arse here, but happy for you to prove me wrong. In doing so, explain to us HOW Brexit and IR35 caused the issue THIS MONTH, but in the months previous we had no issue, and how the issue is now being alleviated and normal service is resuming, whilst nothing has changed re Brexit and IR35 during the period.  The thing that has changed is that the muppets have stopped panic buying and the sensational media have moved on the focus to other non news, and so the supply chain is recovering.

You close by saying it is "combination of a number of things" and yet your argument is based on 2 simple things. That's contradictory and essentially fuels my belief that you are just trying to nail it on those two simple things.

[Chillidoggy]

15 hours ago, Dave Eds said:

My observation from someone who is regularly at the port at Purfleet On Thames.......and often at Harwich, Hull, Immingham.....

Foreign registered vehicles are few and far between at the ports now, as the freight now mainly consists of unaccompanied trailers  (previously these were accompanied by foreign drivers in foreign registered vehicles taking goods to a destination here, and doing other haulage jobs here to get them back to a port and then taking a load back.

 

 

Come on Dave, if you’re going to make sweeping statements like that, please could you back them up with some hard evidence like I did for Dover?

[Bling]

It is indeed complex with more factors at play but things like Brexit and the Pandemic are big contributors. IR35 is another element specific to HGV drivers. a friend runs a company that supplies both HGV drivers and manned trucks to companies across the UK. IR35 is one of the factors that is causing him headaches in trying to get HGV drivers.

 

"explain to us HOW Brexit and IR35 caused the issue THIS MONTH, but in the months previous we had no issue"

We didn't feel it before because we were in the pandemic and demand was subdued. Now demand has ramped up, the shortage of labour is becoming apparent.

" the issue is now being alleviated and normal service is resuming"

Panic buying has fuelled the shortage of petrol but in the south east, three weeks after it started there is still shortage. Last night, I drove past 4 petrol stations and they were all shut. That is not normal service resuming.

There is also a shortage of certain foods and this winter we will be running close to break even on electricity. Is that panic buying too?

 

[PaulCP]

@Blingare those pictures of empty shelves something that you have seen with your own eyes or just something picked from the press, which were probably staged to get a story.