The Home Office has released the second of two visa routes for non-UK national HGV drivers seeking to enter the UK.
We reported on the temporary visa concession for HGV drivers in our earlier blog. Under this concession, 300 eligible HGV Drivers were able to come to the UK so long as they had obtained an endorsement letter from the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS). (Although current reports indicate that only a handful of drivers have opted to enter under this route.)
The second temporary visa scheme announced this week applies to up to 3,700 HGV drivers. It applies only to those drivers who transport food goods.
This visa route operates as part of the Temporary Worker visa scheme. Individual employers wishing to make use of the scheme are now able to do so via the four scheme operators, namely AG Recruitment, Concordia, Fruitful Jobs and Pro-Force. These operators act as sponsors (rather than the individual employers). It is not possible for individual employers to act as the sponsor directly.
The application process and costs vary for each scheme operator. To be eligible, HGV food drivers must have an HGV licence recognised for use in the UK (i.e. an HGV category C or C+E licence). Only licence holders from the EU, EEA (Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway) or Switzerland are eligible.
All applications must be made by 1 December 2021, and visas under this route will expire on 28 February 2022. It remains to be seen how popular this very limited visa route will be with HGV drivers.
In the meantime, exploring all of the available visa options may be at least part of the solution to the current candidate shortage, and not just in relation to HGV drivers, but more generally across all sectors and skill levels.
We are currently supporting a number of organisations dealing with these sorts of issues, so please get in touch with any member of the Business Immigration Team to find out how we can help.
