Soldiers are delivering fuel in Britain as shortages persist

Tanker drivers from the military underwent training over the weekend to deliver fuel across the country starting on Monday. The UK government said in a statement on Friday that almost 100 tanker drivers will be deployed from this week to “further relieve pressure on petrol stations and address the shortage of HGV [Heavy Goods Vehicle] drivers.”The intervention is one of a series of emergency measures announced by the government to address the The crisis is now entering its second week. It started when BP (“People don’t want to go into the road haulage industry, [they] don’t want to be [truck] drivers precisely because we’ve had that massive immigration approach and held wages down, held the quality of the job down,” he told reporters.He did not rule out further relaxing visa restrictions but insisted he did not want a return to “low-wage immigration.” The UK government has repeatedly insisted that lasting solutions to the crisis would be driven by employers offering better pay and conditions.Worker shortages have been exacerbated by the government’s post-Brexit immigration system and are negatively affecting food production, financial services, hospitality and adult social care. Last week, pig farmers said that a shortage of butchers and drivers has created a backlog of more than 100,000 animals, which they may be forced to cull.— Sharon Braithwaite, Amy Cassidy and Anna Cooban contributed reporting.