Boris Johnson news – live: Latest on petrol shortages as UK told to buy
Government asks German residents to drive lorries even if they never have before
UK shoppers have been warned they should buy their Christmas dinner soon and put it in the freezer to avoid disappointment, as Boris Johnson’s plan to give 5,000 foreign lorry drivers temporary visas continues to be panned.
The government hopes that workers brought in from overseas will help “save” the holiday but food and haulage industry leaders were quick to pour cold water on the scheme.
“Ultimately, now I think we have just run out of time,” James Withers, of Scotland Food & Drink, told The Independent. “I don’t think there is anything that can be done now to get the Christmas trade where it should be.”
It comes as it was revealed ministers have urged thousands of Germans living in the UK to drive lorries in a bid to assist with the HGV shortage – even if they have never driven one before.
Germans based in Britain were sent a letter by the Department for Transport, signed by transport minister Baroness Vere, asking them to “consider returning” to the HGV driving sector. “Your valuable skills and experience have never been more needed than they are now,” it states, as the government scrambles to counter shortages.
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Johnson says we can ‘trust’ police, admits problem
The Prime Minister has said “we can trust the police” but said “there is a problem” with the way cases of rape and violence against women are handled.
He said there are “too few prosecutions for rape and too few successful prosecutions, too few convictions.”
However, he said he is working with a taskforce to “compress that timetable between a woman’s complaint about what has happened and any action”.
In an interview with broadcasters, Boris Johnson said: “I do believe in the police. I do think that we can trust the police. And I think the police do a wonderful, wonderful job.
“But there is a problem. And there is a problem in the way we handle rape, domestic violence, sexual violence and the way we handle the complaints of women and girls. And it’s overwhelmingly women and girls.
“And, although the incidence of some of these serious crimes is not actually going up in the way that you might think – we are having success in getting many crime types down – the problem is we have too few prosecutions for rape and too few successful prosecutions, too few convictions.
“And so yesterday I got together the crime and justice taskforce, again, and what we’re trying to do is compress that timetable between a woman’s complaint about what has happened and any action, whether it’s the court proceeding, or the conviction, or whatever.
“Because the time from report to referral, from referral to the court proceedings, from court proceedings to the conclusion, all three of those segments is far too long. And what you’re seeing is the whole system snarled up with evidential problems, with data issues, with mobile phones disclosure, all that kind of stuff, and it’s a nightmare for the women concerned. So we’ve got to fix it.”
Ella Glover1 October 2021 17:31
Ireland won’t…
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