[Red Herring]

I would suggest "Market Forces" have everything to do with it. There is more and more cheap labour becoming available in the UK, some of it very welcome and desperately needed as it does seem some of our locals just don't want the work. However there is also some allegedly "skilled" cheap labour becoming available, ie: truck drivers, who appear on paper to have all the necessary qualifications to do a job and are yet prepared to work for half the rate. They manage this because they didn't have to pay so much for their training (if indeed they had any) and they don't have the overheads to maintain their skills or qualifications (in other words they are quite happy to break the law because they know it is unlikely to affect them) The problem for us as the general public is that those doing the hiring and firing don't have to deal with the consequence of this, they just see the reduced overhead/increased profit. In short if there are cheap drivers around and the industry is allowed to use them, it will.
However my understanding is that none of this applies to the road tanker industry. I believe they are almost closed shop, partly due to the extremely strong union they have (mentioned earlier) so they are in fact one of the few groups of truck drivers not being affected by the cheap opposition. Please correct me if I'm mistaken.....