Some crises come with plenty of advance warning.
More than three months before brawls broke out on Britain’s petrol station forecourts this week and pictures of empty supermarket shelves filled the newspaper front pages, industry chiefs met government ministers to warn of a supply-chain crisis.
The executives came to the June meeting armed with a list of potential fixes: temporary visas to recruit overseas HGV drivers; action to clear the Covid-19 driving test backlog; extended driver hours; and a campaign by the government to urge retired British HGV-licence holders to get back behind the wheel.
But junior transport minister Lady Charlotte Vere was reluctant to act, according to two people present at the meeting. Instead she told the executives that there was “a perception that the industry is crying wolf” and that the government did not want to “create panic”.
The department denied at the time it was being complacent, but it was not until Monday - some 73 days after that June 16 meeting — that ministers finally agreed to all of the industry’s requests. Some 10,500 temporary visas have been issued to drivers and poultry workers, and Vere herself has signed a letter sent to a million HGV drivers this week begging them to get back on the road.
As the ruling Conservative party prepares to open its annual conference in Manchester this weekend, the growing litany of shortages means that Boris Johnson arrives in Manchester dogged by an air of crisis.
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FT.com
