Ombudsman to help jobless drivers?
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• Revised rules for hgv licences are being sought by Mr Ted Garrett, Labour MP for Wallsend, to assist unemployed lorry drivers.
Remarking that under the present regulations a lorry driver who is out of work for six months automatically loses his Licence, Mr Garrett said he had received examples in the North East of drivers with clean licences over 20 years being sacked because of slack trade.
Without a licence they could not get jobs. But to get a new licence they had to take a new test on a hired lorry. Before they could take the test they had to do a week's training at the school in Ashington, Northumberland. But all this could cost about £70, which unemployed drivers could not afford.
When drivers appealed for help to the DoE they had been advised, said Mr Garrett, to get haulage firms to employ them and take the test on their firm's vehicles. But some firms approached had replied that they could not afford to waste the valuable running time of their lorries.
"I have asked the Minister for Transport to investigate this problem and revise the regulations," said Mr Garrett. "If he insists on the strict interpretation of the 1969 Transport Act I will ask the Parliamentary Commissioner — the Ombudsman — to investigate what I consider to be a perversion of natural justice."