Ministers will expand a fast-track scheme to allow up to 5,000 people to be trained as HGV drivers to alleviate the supply chain crisis.
Westminster Education Secretary Nadhim Zahawi said on Sunday last week that 2,000 additional places would be opened up through skills boot camps to boost the number of lorry drivers.
However, the free courses, lasting up to 16 weeks, will not start until next month, meaning they will do nothing to alleviate concerns about shortages this Christmas.
About one in six adults in Britain has been unable to buy essential food items in the last fortnight.
Last month Scotland’s First Minister Nicola Sturgeon described plans to allow foreign drivers to work in the UK in the run-up to Christmas as “woefully inadequate”. And last week it emerged just 127 drivers have so far applied to join the scheme.
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