About a fifth of lorry drivers at British hauliers are from elsewhere in the EU

Britain’s haulage industry is “sleep-walking” — or perhaps that should be sleep-driving — into a shortage of drivers because of an ageing and increasingly unhealthy workforce, putting the health of the economy at risk.

According to the Unite union, the industry’s failure to recruit younger workers means the average age of an large goods vehicle driver has increased from 45.3 years in 2001 to 48 in 2016, with 13 per cent aged over 60 and only 1 per cent under 25.

Unite says the skills shortage is likely to be exacerbated by Brexit as many British haulage firms have become reliant on eastern European drivers. It quotes figures suggesting that between 43,000 and 60,000 of the UK’s 250,000 drivers are from the European Union.

It