After a week of consultation with local UK hauliers that took place from 14th to 21st of October 2021, UK ministers have decided to proceed with a temporary relaxation of Cabotage rules starting 28th of October.
Short summary:
Recently UK have announced that their supply chains are affected by a shortage of local drivers. The total number of professional UK-resident drivers have fallen by about 39,000 between June 2019 and June 2021.
The temporary additional cabotage rights for foreign hauliers are valid for the period up to 30th April 2022 and allow cabotage under these conditions:
• within the territory of Great Britain.
• for a period of 14 days, with the first day being when a laden entry into the United Kingdom was made, no limitation during that period on the number of cabotage journeys permitted.
Also, vehicles undertaking the temporary additional cabotage are removed from the requirement to pay vehicle excise duty.
However, drivers and operators doing cabotage in the UK remain subject to many other commercial road transport rules including:
• common drivers’ activities hours and working time rules.
• requirements and standards for operator licensing (applied via the UK/EU Trade and Co-operation Agreement for the inbound vehicles and via the European Conference of Ministers of Transport (ECMT) quality charter for wider European international transports), including for transport managers.
• UK laws for the condition of vehicles.
• The UK/EU Trade and Co-operation Agreement commits UK and EU to share data about infringements.
Important information : Some national labour rights also apply to the foreign transport companies, including the application of the current UK minimum wage of £8.91 per hour which is equivalent at around 10.54 Euros.
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