THAT venerable BBC Radio Four institution, Any Questions, is always worth a listen. The format is straightforward – different locations around the country, four panelists, topical questions and a live audience.
Indeed, one of the minor mysteries of Scottish broadcasting is why it has proved so difficult to emulate here. Possibly, I suppose, because whatever the question, the discussion always ends up in a dismal wrangle about the constitution which does not make for good radio – or politics.
The sister programme, Any Answers, is an up-market phone in, subject to heavy screening so that the people we hear from have knowledge of what they are talking about. There was a case in point last weekend when the shortage of HGV drivers became the subject of both Questions and Answers.
I learned more about the current crisis in 15 minutes by hearing from callers who either work, or have worked, as HGV drivers than from any other source. It was a vastly different picture from the one painted by politicians and media in which a shortage of foreign drivers is cited as the central issue.
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The UK Government, which generally rejects this thesis because it is portrayed as a Brexit downside, has relented to the extent that 5000 drivers from the EU are to be granted visas to see us through, quite literally, to Christmas. They will expire on Christmas Eve which even Scrooge might have thought a joke in poor taste.
But then hearken unto Any Answers callers and a very different story emerges. First up was an HGV driver on her way to collect a lorry-load of salmon from Kinlochbervie. Essentially, her message was that drivers are leaving the industry, or not returning to it, because of poor pay and conditions, not to mention unreasonable pressures from some unscrupulous employers.
So doubt enters the script. Maybe the problem is not that we have been deprived the services of Bulgarian lorry-drivers but that we do not offer decent pay and conditions to HGV drivers per se, regardless of their nationality? Was that factor, pre-Covid and pre-Brexit, being concealed by the use of foreign labour prepared to accept low pay?
Then to the next caller and here I admit ignorance which may not be shared by better informed readers. It was the first I had heard of the industrial action taken by workers at the DVLA in Swansea which has been going on for seven months and has led to a huge backlog in HGV applications, among others, being dealt with.
Now, imagine as much political and media coverage had been given to that dispute over the last few months as has been accorded to the foreign workers dimension over the past two weeks? Is it possible that a settlement would have been found in which case the HGV driver shortage with all its knock-on effects may never have arisen?
Subsequently, the figure of 42,000 held-up HGV licence renewals has been bandied and not contested by Government. That figure does rather dwarf the 5000 visas and suggests that more focus on the former with less on the latter would have reflected a proper sense of priorities. But who is interested in a boring old industrial dispute in Swansea? Well, now we all should be.
The dispute is about safe working conditions at the DVLA where there has been an exceptionally high number of Covid cases. Whereas most public sector workers were encouraged to work from home, management at Swansea has insisted on staff coming to work to process applications.
According to the Public and Commercial Services union’s website, they quite deliberately targeted the part of the organisation which deals with renewing HGV licences after 15 years on the basis of health checks. “We are asking all PCS members in drivers medical … to take strike action over Covid safety”, the union said in August.
“DM (drivers' medical) was chosen due to its strategic importance to the agency and the fact that ministers are assigning huge importance to the backlogs in this area.” You can’t be much blunter than that. Furthermore, the union claimed: “This dispute could have been easily resolved nine weeks ago when a deal was withdrawn at the last minute”. – ie in June.
At that time, the union stated: “In an unprecedented development in over 20 years of civil service negotiations, PCS has accused ministers at the highest levels of government of scuppering a deal to avert strike action at the Swansea site. Union representatives and senior management, including the DfT permanent secretary, had reached a deal at the end of last week, which could have brought an end to the Covid safety dispute”.
Space (and knowledge) do not permit a more detailed analysis of the rights and wrongs of this dispute. To the ordinary citizen, however, it sounds eminently capable of resolution – after seven months, a backlog of a quarter of a million licence applications including 42,000 for HGV licences and a national shortage of HGV drivers. Why is it not happening?
Instead the focus is on foreign drivers which suits some politicians. No surprise to find the SNP’s Angus Robertson jumping on the back of a lorry to demand longer visas for more foreign workers. Maybe if he had been listening to Any Answers, he too could have learned that decent pay and conditions for a very responsible job might be more important, not to mention industrial stalemate in South Wales.
There is a thin line between “freedom of movement”, which I support, to seeing cheap foreign labour as the answer to all our shortages. In this case, listening to people who knew what they were talking about opened my ears to the true order of priorities. We should all try it more often.
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